Life After a Mastectomy

Changes in your body are hard to come to terms with. But a mastectomy, for some women, can be a change that is particularly difficult getting used to.

About 80,000 women every year have one or both breasts removed. Some of these are after breast cancer, and some of these follow a pre-diagnosis.

Life after after a mastectomy differs from person to person in every way: physically, socially, economically and emotionally. Some survivors are devastated by the pain or by their new appearance, while others are thankful for the potentially deadly body parts to be gone.

Marian Fitzpatrick, who is a seven-year survivor, was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 22 years old. She went through radiation, chemotherapy, had a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery.

As a young woman, she had difficulty getting used to her body after one of her breasts were removed.

“I had no hair when I met the man who is now my husband. It was hard dating with one breast,” Fitzpatrick said, who is now married and has a baby. “But I laid it out before we got serious and it made our relationship stronger.”

Now with technological advances in reconstructive surgery, women don’t have to live without breasts after a mastectomy. For women who decide on reconstruction, there are several options: saline and silicone implants, using tissue and muscle from the stomach or other areas, or a combination of these.

Irene Healy, a sculptor and anaplastologist in Toronto, creates breast prosthesis by using laser scanning and modeling software. Her company, New Attitude, uses technology to match, shape, tone and nipple.

Elsie van Putten, who supports young women with breast cancer by speaking with them over the phone on her own free time and is not affiliated with any organization, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000 when she was 49.

Van Putten got a mastectomy, but she said there were more positives than negatives in losing a breast. For her there was no contemplating surgery, it was a decision of survival.

“I never cry because I lost a breast. Instead I thank God every day I am still alive,” Van Putten said, who is an 11-year survivor at age 60. “I just thank Him because I have another day, another birthday.”

She said there was a solid purpose for her surviving and that is for her to support young women with the disease.

“If I can take the fear out of a person, that’s all I need,” she said while at the American Breast Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk in Prospect Park last weekend. “That’s why I am here: to tell my story. You never know whom I can save and support with just a phone call.”