Susan

At the age of 55, I had gone through many mammograms, ultrasounds & biopsies. All came back fine. So when I discovered a rather large lump in my breast, my first reaction was breast cancer grows very slowly & since I had gone religiously for my checkups, it was not big deal. I did go to my breast surgeon and he did a needle biopsy in his office. A few days later, I was told it was benign. Since I was having very strong periods each month, my gynecologist recommended to have fibroids removed, as well as the lump in my breast since it was sizable. It made sense to me since they could do the surgery on the same day. Everything went fine until a few days later, when the breast surgeon called to tell me that I had breast cancer. Not a big deal, they caught it early. My first thought was I am not losing my hair! My husband reminds me that I wasn’t fearing cancer, I was afraid about losing my hair. I was told initially that it was caught early and would not need chemo. Upon further testing, it turned out that I was HER-2 positive and the course recommended for that included chemotherapy. When I met with my oncologist, I told him that if I needed to go through chemo, I would do it once, so I elected to do a bi-lateral mastectomy with reconstruction. I was advised to really think that through, but my feeling was that I did not want to worry about the other breast for the rest of my life. I met with the plastic surgeon & decided to do reconstruction with using the lattimus flap. The time of my diagnosis to the time of my surgery was 5 weeks, so I had to do a lot of research & doctor’s appointments to come to this decision. I had my surgery & started chemo the following month. I worked both with the oncologist and the plastic surgeon for all of the details with chemo & reconstruction. I bought a few wigs before my surgery so that I could be prepared for my hair loss. One very well-known salon whose owner died of breast cancer, sold me a wig that just didn’t seem like me. When I tried to exchange it, I was told that at the time that I would be wearing my wig, I wouldn’t have hair to compare it to, so why was I worried!!! Unfortunately, nothing prepares you to seeing large amounts of hair in the shower drain. So I took matters into my own hands, and cut my hair off. I never let my husband or my children see me with a bald head. My feeling was that I will remember this for the rest of my life, but I didn’t want them to have that memory of me. I had a nice set of hats, and cover-ups that I wore. One was a cute Santa hat during Christmas which seemed appropriate. I continued to go to my gym, wearing a baseball hat & bandana. If you are determined to keep up with your normal activity, there are so many things you can do to make yourself feel normal. After a year of chemo & wearing wigs, my hair started to grow back!!! I have worked hard to incorporate this whole process into my life, and truly feel what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger! I AM STRONG, AND SO ARE YOU!!!