Today I
feel
Really wound up could barely sleep last night
It was kind of similar to like when you wake up on Christmas morning and you're like is a time. Yes
It's a time is a time
so tomorrow is my
preventative double mastectomy
I
Feel like I'm ready. Are you ready? Yeah, I know
I'm as ready as I think I could possibly be that was really as Commodus to go to that dark part
if we rewind a lot I
Have always had a history of cancer in my family. So when my dad was diagnosed with cancer I was
It wasn't that much of a surprise
The surprising part is that it was really aggressive and they caught it when it was already stage 4 metastatic prostate
cancer
So my dad is
my best friend he's been
My hero basically since I was a little kid
It's been the hardest
Hurdle task of my life to see him get sick and to see him go through treatment. I love
Messing up your head. That's okay. So when I called him and told him that I'm Braco positive
He was devastated
So, I think the first time I heard about Baraka was when Angelina Jolie had her preventative double mastectomy
Angelina Jolie told the world. No, New York Times piece that she carries a genetic mutation, but in 2013
She had both breasts removed and underwent reconstructive surgery
There are plastic surgery studies that show that when Angelina Jolie announced that she had a genetic mutation and was having mastectomies
the number of mastectomies and women undergoing tanana testing really jumped
I'm also seeing a lot more women in their 20s and 30s who?
They've seen family members get cancer seeing people potentially even die of breast cancer, and they do not want to ever be in that place
My lifetime risk of getting breast cancer is 87%
My lifetime risk of getting ovarian cancer is a little over 30%
so I have
Six different meds. I
Truly have never once in this process
Questioned whether a mastectomy is the right thing for me. I
Spent weeks going through it and interviewing
surgeon offices and being told many times
we can't meet with you because you don't have breast cancer or
You're too young. Um
You don't need to be thinking about this and being told to just know
so it took a lot of just advocating for myself to be heard, so
I'll make two lists. You do not need a sleeping pad
My bag in your bag. I want my
My drain belt
Wedge Pulu, I don't know what its gonna be like after my
Mastectomy and reconstruction. I have no idea how long it'll take for me to heal
I mean I have some vague idea but I don't know what I'm gonna look like really
and I do
Absolutely feel nervous about that. I'd be lying if I said I didn't
Seraphina dance 325 93. All right. What are we doing free today?
Bilateral double mastectomy. Yes with with nerve grafting. Yes and implant reconstruction
Yes, I was armed. Okay today. We'll take great care of her
All right, no doubts. I had my first surgery in August
Which was a breast reduction in order to prime the pocket of the breast
Most women don't have any sensation and their breasts after a mastectomy
so that's another reason why I went with my surgeon is she's pioneering this incredible kind of opportunity for women to
regain sensation
It's happening we're doing
Sort of the novel thing we did today is a nerve preserving and sensation preserving mastectomies
So we keep as many of the nerves as we can and then the ones that we can't we end up using a nerve grafts
To connect stay under the nipple. We then did immediate one stage breast reconstruction
Yes
Here we go, aha
I feel so proud of myself
So I was like, how do you feel I was like so proud
It's done. It did it
We did know you did it
After I got my mastectomy my risk went down from 87%
To less than the general population which was 8% You can see like the right there is where the drain was. That's the hole I
Have full sensation and my right on my right side and on my left side, I
Have like sensation and half to three-quarters of my breast. I'm really really thrilled with how they look and how they feel
this is my body now like this is
What it's gonna be like and I'm excited to like kind of get to know it
Closed as less trapped areas in terms of breast cancer. My bracket like tractor is not closed
In a couple of years. I will also remove my ovaries because I'm at risk for ovarian cancer. I
taught two
You know a lot of women and men who are scared to go get another test day
And it is scary that knowledge is is definitely a burden and it's hard
but I think personally I would way rather know and
Use that knowledge to empower me and my decisions