Anyone feel devasted about how you look & feel? And guilty too?

I agree - I opted for double mastectomy because I'm so very young, and decades of mammograms that find something suspicious and the biopsies etc on repeat was just not something I was signing up for. I believe I was the victim of something called 'flat denial', where smoothing skin and protecting some aesthetics instead of doing implants was something my providers said did not exist whatsoever. Things like nipple-sparring, mindfulness toward scarring, tissue rearrangement, fat transfer, overall preventing concavity so that I could go without a bra and have a smooth profile, or just a little teensy bit convex would have been fantastic. But my providers said they were imaginary and did not exist whatsoever. They recommended tissue expanders, but they were already too big upon waking up from the procedure. I never healed over them. Necrosis. Drain tubes. Wound care and bandages. SOO many doctor visits. Finally those failed implants needed to be removed. What's left behind because they were not filled and sat for so long in their crinkly raisin shapes, is that crinkly raisin shaped scar tissue all around the edges and craters in the middle. The best part of having no breasts should have been not having to wear a bra, but because its so unnatural, asymmetrical, hard, uncomfortable... I wear a little padded bra daily. We'd always been a body-positive family unafraid of walking around the house in various stages of dress and my family now sees me topless occasionally, but I put on a bra when I want to be intimate - I cant imagine that area being 'sexy' ever again, and I have a fantastic, healthy physique otherwise. Another main driver for me to choose the mastectomy in the first place was because I would have had to have chemo/radiation if I kept any of my own breast tissue - so no - I did not do chemo/radiation at all... but I still have such a physical disfigurement to deal with now. There's some saying that I cant recall now about how we don't compare our trauma to the trauma of others... they're all valid. But I feel this when I share with others who have the hormone blockers, radiation, etc. ... that my disfigurement is small in light of their struggles... but it isnt... I have a DORA complaint, I want to sue my doctors, I have rage and depression and feel so deeply misinformed and misguided by my doctors. I hate what's left behind - it's so ugly, and I don't have much more options. Your trauma matters, even if others are doing chemo/radiation..!!

Hello all. My first comment on any of these forums. I knew something was off with my body and it was systemic. Long story short, three months later I received diagnosis IDC, Stage IIa, ++-, Group 2 in the right breast. Scheduled for breast conservative lumpectomy, no chemo, rads, AI for five years. That rapidly devolved after MRI revealed satellites around tumor (2.1 cm).

At that point I told my breast surgeon I wanted both breasts gone as I was not going to go through the MRI biopsies again (suffered a significant bleed that left me unresponsive when the medics arrived). I told her and my pcp that I felt there was something lurking in the left breast (the MRI showed a healthy left breast).

I had an aesthetic flat closure 10/7/25. Prior to the surgery many friends and family were horrified I would “maim” myself. The surgeon did exactly as I asked, and while it’s shocking not having my 38Cs, pathology revealed the left breast had a 3mm lobular cancer just waiting to take off. That shut everyone up. But I let the naysayers get to me—my wonderful husband was not one of the naysayers and I knew he would miss my breasts the most. A few days before my surgery, I bought a casting kit off of Amazon and did a silicone casting of my left breast. He and I laughed so hard—it was so much needed comic relief.

My incision starts around in back, literally on my back, comes under my armpits, across the entire chest and back under the other armpit and around back. It’s just about healed. One thing about this type of surgery is that ALL of the breast fat is removed. I find I’m so cold without my to boob heaters.

Fellow sisters, I was fortunate in that all of my doctors are women. Young women—in their thirties and forties. (BTW, I’m 72). I hope that if you have a doctor who won’t listen to you, you are able to find one who will. There are doctors who will listen and help you.

As to feeling sexy again, when I asked my husband if he missed my boobs, he said him finding me sexy had nothing to do with my boobs, and now he could hold me closer to his heart.

My surgeon told me in my first post op checkup that when a woman tells her something is going on with her body and the testing doesn’t identify anything, she (the breast surgeon) always believes the women.

You know your body better than anyone. It is okay to grieve your loss—we’ve made that choice to live, but it is still a shocking loss.

I wrap us all in the tenderest of hugs.

Hello all. My first comment on any of these forums. I knew something was off with my body and it was systemic. Long story short, three months later I received diagnosis IDC, Stage IIa, ++-, Group 2 in the right breast. Scheduled for breast conservative lumpectomy, no chemo, rads, AI for five years. That rapidly devolved after MRI revealed satellites around tumor (2.1 cm).

At that point I told my breast surgeon I wanted both breasts gone as I was not going to go through the MRI biopsies again (suffered a significant bleed that left me unresponsive when the medics arrived). I told her and my pcp that I felt there was something lurking in the left breast (the MRI showed a healthy left breast).

I had an aesthetic flat closure 10/7/25. Prior to the surgery many friends and family were horrified I would “maim” myself. The surgeon did exactly as I asked, and while it’s shocking not having my 38Cs, pathology revealed the left breast had a 3mm lobular cancer just waiting to take off. That shut everyone up. But I let the naysayers get to me—my wonderful husband was not one of the naysayers and I knew he would miss my breasts the most. A few days before my surgery, I bought a casting kit off of Amazon and did a silicone casting of my left breast. He and I laughed so hard—it was so much needed comic relief.

My incision starts around in back, literally on my back, comes under my armpits, across the entire chest and back under the other armpit and around back. It’s just about healed. One thing about this type of surgery is that ALL of the breast fat is removed. I find I’m so cold without my to boob heaters.

Fellow sisters, I was fortunate in that all of my doctors are women. Young women—in their thirties and forties. (BTW, I’m 72). I hope that if you have a doctor who won’t listen to you, you are able to find one who will. There are doctors who will listen and help you.

As to feeling sexy again, when I asked my husband if he missed my boobs, he said him finding me sexy had nothing to do with my boobs, and now he could hold me closer to his heart.

My surgeon told me in my first post op checkup that when a woman tells her something is going on with her body and the testing doesn’t identify anything, she (the breast surgeon) always believes the women.

You know your body better than anyone. It is okay to grieve your loss—we’ve made that choice to live, but it is still a shocking loss.

I wrap us all in the tenderest of hugs.

This is a wonderfully honest question. I have no guidance on hair loss, but I would urge you to avoid wasting psychological energy fighting your feelings because some other women have it worse. My father used to say, "Comparisons are odious." He's right....but he's long gone so I can't ask him how we avoid comparing ourselves to others. So lean into your disappointment. Acknowledge it. Talk about it only with people who won't respond with, "Well, at least you don't....blahblahblah." Breast cancer is unique in the way it can disfigure us. We're raised to focus so much on our figures...and then have them DISfigured. Ugh. Give yourself permission to absorb this blow without weighing whether others have it worse. Virtual hugs.

Hello all. My first comment on any of these forums. I knew something was off with my body and it was systemic. Long story short, three months later I received diagnosis IDC, Stage IIa, ++-, Group 2 in the right breast. Scheduled for breast conservative lumpectomy, no chemo, rads, AI for five years. That rapidly devolved after MRI revealed satellites around tumor (2.1 cm).

At that point I told my breast surgeon I wanted both breasts gone as I was not going to go through the MRI biopsies again (suffered a significant bleed that left me unresponsive when the medics arrived). I told her and my pcp that I felt there was something lurking in the left breast (the MRI showed a healthy left breast).

I had an aesthetic flat closure 10/7/25. Prior to the surgery many friends and family were horrified I would “maim” myself. The surgeon did exactly as I asked, and while it’s shocking not having my 38Cs, pathology revealed the left breast had a 3mm lobular cancer just waiting to take off. That shut everyone up. But I let the naysayers get to me—my wonderful husband was not one of the naysayers and I knew he would miss my breasts the most. A few days before my surgery, I bought a casting kit off of Amazon and did a silicone casting of my left breast. He and I laughed so hard—it was so much needed comic relief.

My incision starts around in back, literally on my back, comes under my armpits, across the entire chest and back under the other armpit and around back. It’s just about healed. One thing about this type of surgery is that ALL of the breast fat is removed. I find I’m so cold without my to boob heaters.

Fellow sisters, I was fortunate in that all of my doctors are women. Young women—in their thirties and forties. (BTW, I’m 72). I hope that if you have a doctor who won’t listen to you, you are able to find one who will. There are doctors who will listen and help you.

As to feeling sexy again, when I asked my husband if he missed my boobs, he said him finding me sexy had nothing to do with my boobs, and now he could hold me closer to his heart.

My surgeon told me in my first post op checkup that when a woman tells her something is going on with her body and the testing doesn’t identify anything, she (the breast surgeon) always believes the women.

You know your body better than anyone. It is okay to grieve your loss—we’ve made that choice to live, but it is still a shocking loss.

I wrap us all in the tenderest of hugs.

@lpowell the closer to his heart made my eyes well again.