Here’s why I said no to reconstructive surgery after breast cancer

(Christina Miner/ Women’s Health Magazine) –– One August morning in 2019, after church, I finally did the thing I’d been terrified to do because I was afraid of what I might find. I gently leaned over the bed to cuff under my left breast, which had been swollen and painful for months. I didn’t have to press hard—there was already a lump in my palm. I screamed for my husband. That night, I lay curled up next to him, crying and praying.

At the clinic, the doctor lost count of how many lumps she found. When I got the call from the radiologist, I fell to my knees in the bathroom. All I could hear was “carcinoma.” Cancer. I had cancer.

Ductal carcinoma in-situ, Stage 0, ER/PR+, Grade 3, to be exact. My doctor explained that Grade 3 meant the cancer was growing fast, and Stage 0 meant it was still localized in my ducts. The surgery had to happen soon. (…)