Preventive Mastectomy

There have been a number of articles and studies about using mastectomies as breast cancer prevention. It's a big decision and should never be made lightly. I made that decision 9 months ago and had a bilateral mastectomy (both breasts) 7 months ago and had breast reconstruction at the same time. Here's my story.

I'm 60 years old and there is a history of breast cancer on my father's side of the family, not my mother's. I was always comforted with the reports that you had to worry more if it was on the maternal side of your family. I started getting mammograms every January when I hit 42. I had a small scare in 1994 with a spot they found on my right breast. They did a biopsy and said it was a fatty cyst and nothing to worry about. So I stopped worrying about it. In my 40's I left my care totally up to my doctors. I know I should have done monthly self exams, but never did it for more than a couple of months immediately following my mammogram and then I'd forget to do it. They say to tie it to your periods, but since I had a hysterectomy in 1992, I didn't have periods any more. So, all in all, I just didn't worry about my breasts. That is never a good idea. I could have tied the self exam to the first of each month or the 15^th of each month or anything that would have helped me remember to do it. Instead, I ignored it because, like lots of women, I was uncomfortable probing and squeezing my own breasts.

I was morbidly obese for most of my adult life (I took care of that finally by having gastric bypass surgery in May 2006 and losing half of myself - see my article on Associated Content here as well as a diary and journal on my blog at www.dcs.typepad.com/50pluslifestyle . Things were going great and then I had my yearly mammogram in Jan 07. They saw something they didn't like and sent my doctor a letter in mid-Feb requesting I have a more in depth mammogram done. His office got in touch with me and sent me back for another mammogram. That one definitely showed an abnormally shaped mass in my right breast that they wanted to check. I was then sent to a surgeon who required I have an ultrasound mammogram.