Double-mastectomy

With only 16 days until my surgery, I may be making some changes to the plan. The other day I met a girl named Jen...she just had the same procedure at City of Hope that I have scheduled. She is a smart and very sweet girl. She showed me her breasts one month after surgery and it was really hard for me. The scars go from the bottom of her nipples out to the sides. I have asked my surgeon why they can't enter through the inframammary crease (under the breast) where the scars will be hidden and she said that it would make it difficult for them to remove all the tissue from the top of the breast. The inframammary crease is where they took my lump out from my right breast (during my lumpectomy in June) and it looks really good. You can hardly tell I was operated on there.

So, after spending a few hours on the internet, I found several doctors that perform the procedure through the inframammary crease, which much more aesthetically pleasing before-and-after photos. So, I wrote an email to my surgeon, with website links, asking her to consider performing my surgery that way, or I would be considering getting it done with a doctor that would. We shall see...

I firmly believe that this will be offered more widely soon, but it'll all so new that mastectomies can be performed with the skin-sparring and direct-to-implant that a lot of doctors haven't caught up. Hopefully this will push my hospital to offer the procedure this way for other women.

Below is an example I found online of the scars that are left with the direct-to-implant mastectomy when it is NOT perfomed through the inframammary crease. I am willing to put in the time and money to have it done without such scars, if my surgeon is not willing to perform the procedure through the inframammary crease.