moogie

It is very common. When I first got a bad needle biopsy, I told my " best" friend of over 20 years....and did not hear from her much for an entire year until 3 days before my mastectomies!!! Guess how that conversation went: what's new?Well.......

She is pretty much out of my life now because I believe she has some issues of her own to deal with.....Sometimes people get paranoid for themselves when someone they know has a medical crisis, and they can't deal. They are sorry, and hopefully will never know what it feels like on the receiving end. You will find much support here from people who care and understand.

Moogie 

I wore out my husbands ear on this topic on a long car ride! 

People have affairs. Not just men. I'd bet my money this isn't his first, and that his wife knows who she is married to...after all these years. My concern has to do with his lack of discretion, the complicity in a hush money pay-off ( indirectly or not, we all know how this stuff goes...), and the potential for being open to blackmail. I for one am happy that he has effectively shut the door to the White House for himself. Clearly the woman involved has a long, documented history as a bit of a nutter , and no doubt there were many politically ambitious groupies with better pedigrees available to him. The fact that he manufactured a position for her,  arranged a paycheck, and did not ensure that this relationship would be kept private pretty much demonstrates on a core level that this guy is a doofus.

I hope his wife is doing well, and that this story will die down for her sake and the sake of her children. If he did father Hunter's child, he should be a man about it. It will eventually come out and he will look even worse when it does. Doofus to the max.

Moogie 

While your theoretical statistical risk may seem unchanging, your increased risk for developing breast cancer AT ANY TIME is also constant. Increases in age increase possibility of BC independent of LCIS.
Anyone classified as High RIsk needs yearly imaging, because theoretical risk is not truly personal risk.
That was how it was explained to me.
Moogie

I am a clean nut.
After surgery I could not use deoderant, so I used Dial soap under my arms and freshened up with witch hazel towelettes during the day if I got sweaty, i did not have any visible stitches under my arms. When I was able , I got the natural crystal deoderant at a health food store.

For the first few weeks, I washed my upper body at the sink. Then I woud run some water in the tub, sit down, and do all below the waist in the bath. I found it easier to keep things dry in the tub. Using a sprayer tended to sprinkle water allover.

Babywipes, and the witch hazel toweletes were very helpful. Dial also does what they say: It does cut down on bacteria. I was using Dove initially, and could tell I was getting sweaty at a certain point in the day by the sniff test. The Dial definitely solved that problem and I did not really need deoderant when using it regularly.

Good luck!
Moogie

Last night I could not sleep and turned on the tv to zone out for a little bit. Instead I got so angry I was up even later. Television show "workout" showed a very fit young woman exercising, and an employee making " fun" of her breasts and how they looked. Well, the woman's boyfriend revealed that the young woman is a breast cancer survivor.

What can I say? Fatuous idiots should hope karma has not got the accuracy of a cruise missile: at some point we all have an illness that effects the look of our body.

Makes me furious!!! Women treating women this way.
Moogie

Dr.Carolyn Kaelin's books are excellent

Bless that German Massage therapist. Despite the cruddy news she gave you, Her insight saved you!! What if you did not know for a longer period of time..got cellulitis ..and did not even have a clue what was going on????

I am doing the illustrations for my booklet this weeK: " Go WIth The FLow: a savvy gal's guide to lymphedema prevention." Aiming for a fun, retro feel ...and a lot of tips for prevention. My goal is to donate it to the local rehab center, and find a sponsor locally for printing costs....so every gal who has her armpit monkeyed with will know what to do if things aren't " SO SWELL...."

Your treatment sounds great. My therapist told me she sees gals all the time out in the world that obviously have lymphedema...and do not know it. And their physicians see them hobbling around on a swollen leg, and never investigate the cause!!!


If men's balls could swell like a BC arm, there would be telethons....a commemorative postage stamp, a celebrity spokesperson, and a sandwich named after it..........

Go girl and " GO with the flow"!!!!!
Moogie

Peaches:
I'm glad you did what was right for you. Isn't it a woman's perogative to change her mind? EMBRACE IT! You are captain of you ship!!
If anyone had told me even a year before my surgery that I would have had bilateral mastectomies, I would have called them nuts. Seriously. There was some episode of Gray's Anatomy where a woman had prophylactic masts, and I remember calling my mother and saying: GOOD GRIEF. Hey, the laugh was on me!! Who knew that my feelings would change?

You have to do what makes sense to you when there is medical uncertainty, and trust your instincts. Even now . Someone asked me if I regret not having done it sooner, and I do not. All things in their own time...I did not feel my risk was high enough to warrant life changing surgery before the day came.

Your thorough research indicates to me that you take good care of yourself, so enjoy!! If you are not truly compelled to take this journey...my advice is to hold off as you have done.
Be well!!!!
Moogie

Ask the surgeon directly of the excision will be " visually" bad. One said to me " you will have a poor cosmesis and it canot be addressed by plastic surgery". So then I asked: are you saying I will look like a deflated football?

Basically plastics does best when they get to start form scratch. If more that 1/3rd of your breast is going, probably mastectomy would give better cosmetic results. I have had a huge dent and a mastectomy. The mastectomy with reconstruction was easier to get used to and far less disturbing....
Moogie

To add one more note:
When I lived in NY, I went to one of the Most famous NYC, BC surgeons. He treats a lot of BC-Long island has , I believe , one of the highest rates in the country.

He told me years ago: Core biopsy is useful, but it only gets what the needle touches.
He always followed a " finding" with excision, for this very reason. And at the NCI center where I got my mastectomies...several women going for prophylactics recently were blindsided by invasive cancer findings. This simply points out that imaging is a useful, limited resource.

It's important to know this.

Moogie