Welcome @finallyretired. Being freshly diagnosed with DCIS is likely not the retirement gift you were hoping for.

You'll notice that I moved your question about deciding on treatment after a partial mastectomy to this existing discussion:
- Diagnosed with DCIS: How do I decide on treatment? https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/dcis/

I did this so you can read previous posts about DCIS and treatment decision making as well as connect with other members like @tctredwell1 and @sakina who were also recently diagnosed and those who have journeyed before you like @sequoia @kathyomaha55 @jennie23b @collielady and many others.

I can certainly understand the choice to not have further treatment after surgery. It's a personal choice. Did your cancer team perform the Oncotype DX test on a tissue sample that may help with your decision about chemo's effectiveness for you?

The Oncotype DX Breast Recurrence Score® test has been developed for patients with early-stage HR+, HER2- breast cancer to:
– Precisely identify those patients who will and will not benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy
– Determine the magnitude of chemotherapy benefit
– Provide an individual’s risk of distant recurrence

About the Oncotype DX Breast DCIS Score test https://www.oncotypeiq.com/en-US/breast-cancer/patients-and-caregivers/stage-0-dcis/about-the-test

If you can still have the OncotypeDX genomic test done, you can have an idea of your risk of recurrence. And, if it's very low, it makes decisions easier as a low score also suggests against chemo. I had the test done nearly 3 weeks after a lumpectomy so the time lag wasn't an issue.
(And the resulting low score was helpful.)

I was offered local site-specific precision radiation that was every other day for a total of 5 sessions. I think it's considered very low risk but is specifically to "clean up" the area around the tumor site and offered only that local protection in case some rogue cells remained. I didn't have it but think it's not a bad idea. And if the tumor (caught at stage 1A) were larger or the sentinel node biopsy detected cancer cells, I likely would have had it. But I hope you get enough information to look at the options and don't rule out anything just because of age either. Just look at the big picture and which decisions would 'wear well' meaning least likely to cause second-guessing later.

@auntieoakley I just read you last comment and it sounds like you and I are in the same sail boat. You are going through exactly what I'm going through. Let's stay in touch as I am interested in what you decide on this journey that we all find ourselves in.