Breast cancer survivors going flat
Before Debbie Bowers had surgery for breast can cer, her doctor promised that insurance would pay for reconstruction, and said she could “even go up a cup size.“
But Bowers did not want a silicone implant or bigger breasts. “Having something foreign in my body after a cancer diagnosis is the last thing I wanted,“ said Bowers, 45, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. “I just wanted to heal.“
While plastic surgeons and oncologists aggressively promote breast reconstruction as a way for women to “feel whole again,“ some doctors say they are beginning to see resistance to the surgery . Patients like Bowers are choosing to defy medical advice and social convention and remain breastless after breast cancer. They even have a name for the decision to skip reconstruction: They call it “going flat.“
“Reconstruction is not a simple process,“ said Dr Deanna J Attai, a breast surgeon in Burbank, California, adding that more of her patients were opting out of reconstruction.“Some women just feel like it’s too much: It’s too involved, the re are too many steps, it’s too long a process.“
Social media has allowed these women to become more open about their decision to live without breasts. For a recent video created by wisdo.com, a social media platform, and widely shared on Facebook, Bowers and her friend Marianne DuQuette Cuozzo, 51, removed their shirts to show their scarred, flat chests. And Paulette Leaphart, 50, a New Orleans woman whose clotting disorder prevented her from having reconstruction after a double mastectomy , walked topless from Biloxi, Missouri, to Washington this summer to raise awareness about the financial struggles of cancer patients.“Breasts aren’t what make us a woman,“ Leaphart said.
The nascent movement to “go flat“ after mastectomies challenges long-held assumptions about femininity.
In promoting the surgery , doctors cite studies that suggest breast reconstruction improves a woman’s quality of life after cancer. But some women say that doctors focus too much on physical appearance, and not enough on the toll prolonged reconstructive procedures take on their bodies and their psyches. Up to one-third of women who undergo reconstruction experience complications.
Rebecca Pine, a cancer survivor from Long Island said, “It’s a tremendous amount to put your body through, and it’s not like we’re going to get our breasts back. They don’t look or feel, in most cases, like our breasts. The nerves are cut, so they’re not receptive to feel or touch.“
