Deciding On Whether To Have Breast Reconstruction
- HGTV’s Clea Shearer, 44, is embracing her post-surgery body with confidence after breast cancer treatment and the removal of one implant due to complications, saying wearing a summer dress now feels like “winning the lottery.”
- Shearer was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer in 2022 when doctors discovered the cancer had spread to one of her lymph nodes.
- Shearer underwent treatment, which included a double mastectomy followed by chemotherapy and radiation. She later needed emergency surgery to remove her right breast implant after experiencing complications.
- Mastectomy is the removal of the entire breast during surgery. There are a number of factors to weigh when considering a mastectomy, chief among them is whether breast-conserving surgery (or lumpectomy) is possible. Your doctor will look at the size and features of your tumor as well as your family history in order to make a recommendation.
“I’ve spent many months trying to buy clothes that would hide the fact that I haven’t had a right breast since last October,” said “The Home Edit” cofounder, in a recent Instagram post, featuring herself in a beautiful floral dress.
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“In fact, it’s everyone else’s problem if they are uncomfortable with the way I look. I’m just going to be easy breezy with a glass of champagne all summer long.”
Expert Mastectomy & Breast Reconstruction Resources
- To Reconstruct or Not: After Mastectomy, Two Women Take Very Different Paths
- What Happens During a Double Mastectomy?
- Breast Reconstruction: Regaining Your Sense of Self
- Implant Reconstruction After a Mastectomy: The Options
- Breast Reconstruction: Implants vs. Your Own Tissue
- For Breast Reconstruction After Mastectomy, Women May Choose ‘Now,’ ‘Later,’ or ‘Never’
- Did You Know That Most Health Insurers Are Required To Pay For Breast Reconstruction Surgery?
The California native previously shared how an emergency surgery, following complications with her breast reconstruction, led her to have her right breast implant removed, leaving her flat chested on one side.
Shearer, who underwent a double mastectomy in April 2022, recounted what led to the decision.
She wrote in an Instagram post last year, “For the last couple of years, I’ve battled issues and complications with my right breast. From the lack of skin I retained following necrosis, to the severe damage radiation caused to my breast and surrounding areas (both inside and out), I have fought and fought and fought to salvage what I could over the course of 8 surgeries. And today I lost the war.
“I had no choice but to completely remove my right implant which means I’m right back to a post mastectomy state. I am flat on one side and will need a prosthetic. After a 3 year journey, I can’t quite put into words how traumatizing this is for me.”
Prior to the life-changing implant removal, Shearer recalled noticing her incision “heavily leaking” while on vacation, prompting urgent surgery to remove her right implant and a “delayed reconstruction using a latissimus flap after healing.”
She concluded, “Also different from my previous surgeries: I’m devastated and feel a sense of anger. I’ve fought so hard over the years and now I’m right back at square one. I’m sure those feelings will fade, and I’ll get through it like I always do. But today I’m allowing myself to just be upset.
“Tomorrow is a new day, and we’ll see what it brings, but I know for sure my journey has shifted. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming along with me.”
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Clea Shearer’s Cancer Journey
Shearer’s cancer journey began in 2022 after discovering a lump.
“I found a lump myself (in) the last week of February,” Shearer revealed on social media.
“I had been trying to make an appointment with my OB(GYN) for several months, and even when I told them I found a lump, they couldn’t accommodate me. I had to request a mammogram from my general doctor, which led to an ultrasound and then an emergency triple biopsy,” she explained.
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She would later be diagnosed with breast cancer. She was initially told her cancer was stage 1, but during a nine-hour surgery in April 2022, doctors found cancer in one of her lymph nodes, which elevated the cancer to stage 2.
Shearer was diagnosed with “aggressive and fast-moving” breast cancer, but she thankfully “caught it early.”
She had two tumors, one measuring 2 centimeters in size and the other 3 centimeters.
Shearer underwent treatment, which included a double mastectomy. Her treatment also included both chemotherapy and radiation.
In November 2022, Shearer revealed she was “cancer-free”; however, she still undergoes regular checks to ensure the cancer has not returned.
All About Double Mastectomies
A double mastectomy is a procedure in which both breasts are removed to get rid of cancer. The procedure may also be performed as a preventative measure for women who are at a very high risk of developing breast cancer.
The procedure typically only takes a few hours, but may take longer depending on what type of reconstruction a woman has opted to get. Some women decide to have their breasts reconstructed and have implants put in right after the mastectomy, while others don’t have reconstruction at all.
“A double mastectomy typically takes about two hours for the cancer part of the operation, the removing of the tissue,” Dr. Elisa Port, a surgical oncologist at Mount Sinai, told SurvivorNet. “The real length, the total length of the surgery, can often depend on what type of reconstruction [a patient] has.”
What Happens During a Double Mastectomy?
Dr. Port notes that these days, most women do opt to have some sort of reconstruction. The length of these surgeries can vary a great deal. When implants are used, the procedure can take two to three hours (so the total surgery time would be around five hours). There is also the option to take one’s own tissue (usually from the belly area) and transfer it into the breast area, but this is a much longer procedure.
“When you take tissue from another part of the body and transfer it to fill in the empty space where the breasts are, this is a very long operation,” Dr. Port says. “It can take anywhere from six to 12 hours because it’s really like having a tummy tuck and then transferring the tissue and grafting the tissue, connecting the vessels, so those tissues have blood flow to live in.”
The Last Frontier: The Promise of Restoring Sensation After Mastectomy
Considering Breast Reconstruction After a Mastectomy
If you’ve had a mastectomy, breast reconstruction is one of the major issues to consider. There are several options available.
The reconstruction process can happen at the time of the surgery to remove the breast, or later on in the case of implants. Some women opt for no reconstruction, but decide later on that they want reconstruction to restore a sense of self, or simply get back to they way they used to look.
Dr. Andrea Pusic Explains How Reconstruction Can Help Some Women Feel Whole Again
Breast reconstruction surgery is a decision that women may consider after going through a mastectomy for breast cancer treatment. The reconstruction process can happen at the time of the surgery to remove the breast, or later on in the case of implants.
It’s a very personal choice for women to make, and many actually don’t go through reconstruction. However, for the women who do, they’ve said that it’s a way for them to feel more like themselves after going through the difficult experience of a breast cancer battle.
“It’s a very private thing,” Dr. Andrea Pusic, chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Brigham Health, said in a previous interview for SurvivorNet.
“Breast reconstruction is a restoration of a woman’s form and her sense of self. A lot of breast reconstruction is trying to erase the trauma of the mastectomy surgery, putting the cancer behind a patient, saying this is in the rear view mirror, and putting her back on track.”
Breast cancer survivor Caitlin Kiernam shares life after reconstruction surgery
As for breast cancer options:
The first option of using your own tissue is performed at the same time as the mastectomy. This involves taking tissue from your lower abdomen and implanting it into the chest. New connections for blood flow are devised and the end result is quite natural. The lower abdomen will have a scar from hip to hip, it’s much like a tummy tuck only the fat removed has now been formed into a mound to create the new breast. This is a long (eight hour) surgery, and the hospital stay is three to five days. You will leave the hospital with drains and will need at-home care until the drains are removed. If you are having radiation, this surgery is probably not available as the skin has to be in good condition. It would be done after you have healed.
The second option is breast implants. This too can be done at the time of the breast surgery or completed later on. It involves implanting an expander that will be filled over several months with fluid, which will expand the chest tissue. Once the correct size is attained, a final implant of either saline or silicone is implanted.
RELATED: ‘I Felt Like a Woman Again’: Do Prosthetic Nipples Help Breast Cancer Survivors?
Getting Comfortable With Body Image
We’re delighted to see Clea Shearer maintaining post-surgery confidence in her body. Remember, struggling with body image is not uncommon, especially for so many people dealing with health challenges, including cancer or the aftermath of a preventative mastectomy.
And it’s important you try to work on how you view your body because it can positively impact your emotional and physical wellbeing as a whole.
My Confidence Was Destroyed: Dealing With Body Image During Cancer Treatment
Dr. Marianna Strongin, a New York-based licensed clinical psychologist, says spending time in front of the mirror can help with body image.
Although “research has found that when looking in the mirror we are more likely to focus on the parts of our body we are dissatisfied with” which can cause “a negative self-view and lower self- esteem,” it’s important to look at the parts of your body that you love and the parts of your body that you don’t.
Eventually, Dr. Strongin says, doing so can help you create a more accepting relationship with yourself.
“Body image is both the mental picture that you have of your body and the way you feel about your body when you look in a mirror,” she said. “As you allow yourself to spend more time looking at all of you, you will begin having a new relationship with your body.”
Celebrity Stylist Ann Caruso on Beauty and Femininity After Cancer
Whether you’ve undergone mastectomy, or not, it’s important to know you’re not alone if you’re having a hard time with how you view your body after receiving a diagnosis or going through treatment.
Celebrity stylist Ann Caruso, for instance, previously opened up to SurvivorNet about how she was never the same after her 12 breast cancer surgeries.
“You’re not the same carefree person that you once were, and it was very hard for me to look at myself every day,” Caruso said. “It was like I was a totally different person and didn’t fit into any of my clothes for so long.”
But as time went on, Caruso said the experience helped her redefine femininity and body image as she knew it, adding, “Femininity is a state of mind,” Caruso said. “And I think that’s something that we have to remind ourselves.”
Meanwhile, Dr. William Breitbart, the chair of the Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, previously told SurvivorNet, “Every day of our lives is really filled with uncertainty” but those facing a cancer diagnosis tend to feel that uncertainty at a more extreme level.”
Dr. Breitbart also said that learning to embrace that uncertainty is a part of living, not just for those fighting cancer, but for everyone.
RELATED: Learn to Accept Yourself A Huge Part of Living With Cancer
“What the task becomes is having the courage to live in the face of uncertainty, realizing that you cannot necessarily control the uncertainty in life, like the suffering that occurs, challenges both good and bad,” Dr. Breitbart says. “You may not be able to control those but you have control over how you choose to respond.”
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
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