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I had a mastectomy in 1998, and then chemo.
I'll never forget the day that I was told I would have to have a mastectomy. My reaction to the words was total denial.
I made the choice to have the double mastectomy, and for me it felt like the right choice, and it turned out to be the right choice.
The cancer I had is not at all equal to other people's cancer. I've never had to have chemotherapy; I haven't had to have a mastectomy.
One of my first thoughts I had when I started considering the mastectomy was, 'What am I going to look like?' And then, 'What will my husband think?'
I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer is higher than my risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex.
When I had cancer - of the colon first, followed by breast cancer and a mastectomy - my motto used to be 'Drips by day, Prada by night.' I felt that I had to grasp it in the same way as you'd take on any challenge.
For me it was just more important to get the cancer out. With the double mastectomy I now have less than one per cent chance of getting it back, otherwise it was 20, 30 or 40 per cent chance and for me it wasn't worth it.
I would like to take the stigma away. 'Mastectomy' the word seemed so scary to me at first. After doing research and seeing the advancements, the surgery has come a long way from 20 years ago. The results can be incredible.
One day, right after my mastectomy, I went for a walk in Central Park, and there was this mob of people blocking the road. I thought, 'Oh, great, now I'm stuck!' but then I suddenly realized that it was a breast cancer walk.
I had male breast cancer and had dual radical modified mastectomy, and I've spent a lot of time working with the Susan G. Komen foundation to make men aware of male breast cancer - if you have breast tissue, you can have breast cancer.
Before I had a double mastectomy, I was already pretty flat-chested, and I made so many jokes over the years about how small my chest was that I started to think that maybe my boobs overheard me... and were just like, 'You know what? We're sick of this. Let's kill her.'
On the morning of May 1, 2018, I woke up knowing that the day I had anticipated for nine years had finally arrived. It was the day of my preventative double mastectomy - the day I would attack my BRCA 2 genetic mutation head-on and take my chances of breast cancer from 84 percent to virtually zero.
The night before my mastectomy, I had done my best to keep my mind off of the impending procedure. My family and I went to the Tampa Bay Lightning hockey game, where I binged on pizza and ice cream and took full advantage of the doctor's advice to eat up the night before since I had to begin fasting at midnight.