A Breast melanoma Survivor Explains Why She 'Dropped a Boob' - Jezebel

Rita Henley Jensen is 69, and after her mastectomy she began the method of reconstructing her lacking breast through surgery. Then she took a pointy left turn.

Jensen is a creator and founding father of women's eNews. In an essay for SheKnows, Jensen writes that she's caught with the aid of her determination to forgo reconstruction surgery, asserting, "I don't remorseful about that I determined to drop a boob. I do regret that the publish-mastectomy bathing swimsuit I purchased is gruesome, via my lights. i'd definitely like my black Speedo back." Love her.

Jensen describes being in the surgeon's workplace, realizing exactly what she would be going through if she desired to decide upon that boob returned up again:

i used to be requested to strip right down to pretty an awful lot nothing, and the plastic surgeon took pictures of my nakedness, asking me to rotate in order that he might have on-hand photographs of my total higher section. "Why?" I requested. And he had a perfectly prepared reply: He had to make a decision to take tissue from my again, my butt or my abdominal — or might be implants or some mixture.

"Oh," I stated.

He introduced that he would then have to rearrange blood vessels from my belly area to the breast enviornment to retain the newly pasted-in tissue alive.

"Oh," I mentioned.

He very carefully explained the complexity and hazards of the potential surgical procedure.

"Oh," I observed.

He asked if I had any questions, and i desired to understand how long I'd be out from work. He said I may still be capable of return to work after six weeks.

I fled. as the CEO of a small nonprofit, there became no means I may miss six weeks of work.

No regrets. That vivid step-by-step truly drives home the painstaking process of recovery, and the sacrifices ladies are pressured to make in change for "normalcy." Jensen says her internist was impressed and happy that she'd pointed out no to reconstruction, and her co-employees didn't even word when she forgot to put the prosthesis into the pocket developed into her publish-surgical procedure bra. The whole essay is neatly value analyzing here.

photograph by way of Flickr.

Contact the writer at aimee.lutkin@jezebel.com.