[Survivor2be]

Just to share my story as well, which originally did NOT include radiation!!!
Triple neg, stage 2a at the time. I did chemo for 6 months first before I did my bilat mastectomy. The plan was to do the DIEP (which is take your belly fat and put t in your boobs). But I didn't have the time at work saved yet, so I just did the BMX and was gonna wait. However, I had 1/11 nodes positive, so now I have stage 2b triple neg. surgeon said I did not need radiation, radiation oncologist said new research out of Europe is showing promise to reduce recurrence and with your age and diagnosis, i think you should do it. So, since i didnt want to deal with cáncer again (funny story about that though!), so we planned for 28 days of radiation. I had to wait 10 weeks from original surgery so I could recover from the BMX and then axillary node dissection, then put tissue expanders and fill them. They did that for the cosmetic results. Radiation may cause the skin to loose stretch. I was a "D" before, so I didn't want to limit my reconstruction options. So I finally started radiation and it wasn't bad. Worked every day, no pain since BMX takes away sensation, no major redness cuz there is minimal skin-skin touching with an expander (not like real boob!). However, I grew a recurrence on radiation and then had to do another surgery and increase rads. I still tolerated everything well until the last boosts.

Currently, I've finished all treatment for the primary tumor except reconstruction. Plastic surgeon said to wait at least a year for radiated skin to heal. My skin looks really good, but I guess it still needs to age!!!!!

I know how frustrating it can be to wait!!!!get the TE for now and once ttreatment is over and when you're at the year mark, you'll have a great gift for yourself!!