“I Will Survive” — a Decision that Saved My Life

“WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO HAVE BOTH BREASTS REMOVED?” my new doctors asked, one after another, at my 10-year checkups. The three doctors who originally treated me had retired or moved on, so I was telling my story to new caregivers.

I explained that my surgeon had recommended only a lumpectomy or a single mastectomy. She never mentioned a DOUBLE MASTECTOMY—a surgery I assumed was outdated, too “radical” for the 21st century. That was back in Betty Ford times, I thought, or surely she would have brought it up.

I called my mom from the parking lot. “Have them both removed,” she said. I yelled something about Betty Ford and hung up. Then I called my best friend. “Have them both removed,” she said just as plainly as my mother, but added, “I’ve talked to some nurses and a woman who had only a lumpectomy, and they all say to get a double mastectomy.”

So I went to Barnes & Noble and then the internet to research my options. I learned about mastectomies, reconstruction techniques, and that insurance companies were federally required to cover reconstruction of the healthy breast to “match” the new cancer-free one.

Since my cancer lump had been missed on a mammogram just three months earlier, and since my healthy breast would undergo surgery anyway, a double mastectomy suddenly felt less “radical” and more logical.

“That decision probably saved your life,” each of my new doctors told me after hearing my reasoning.

In those ten years, new studies, clinical trials, and DNA mutations had been discovered. And the once nameless, amorphous type of breast cancer cells my body had hosted was finally identified: triple negative breast cancer, with up to a 30% chance of recurrence within the first five years after treatment.

I’ve always said knowledge is power. But maybe sometimes it’s best NOT to know everything in advance. I’m grateful I learned afterward that I could have been a ticking time bomb had I not made that fateful “radical” decision.

Then, at the 10-year mark, another decision arrived. A DNA test revealed I carry a newly discovered BRIP1 mutation associated with ovarian cancer.

So, of course. I had those removed along with my fallopian tubes. It wasn’t a difficult choice. Research didn’t imply I needed a full hysterectomy; just the prophylactic removal of the area where those little BRIPs would likely move next.

I know, I know! The woman who went full-radical on her breasts suddenly decided to hold back on this related surgery. But the science still holds, another 10 years have passed, and I remain cancer-free.

And because that surgery wasn’t quite so radical, I was able to squeeze back into my jeans that same weekend and shake my pompons on the football field while Gloria Gaynor sang “I Will Survive” during the Cardinals’ halftime show.

I WILL SURVIVE