First Up......

Goodbye tubes and ovaries.  I've got a surgery date scheduled for June 23.  That's the day my tubes and ovaries go....and the day that I will start menopause. Woo-hoo!  I had initially thought that I would get a hysterectomy too.  While uterine cancer is not typically associated with BRCA-1, I do have several women in my family lineage that have had uterine cancer.  Maybe there is some other genetic mutation floating around that has yet to be discovered, or maybe its that generations ago, women didn't talk as much to their doctors about what was normal/abnormal bleeding.  Or maybe their doctors didn't ask.

I wasn't so much worried about uterine cancer as that I thought it would simplify hormone replacement therapy...I'd be able to get estrogen alone instead of adding progesterone.  I would avoid having to deal with any bleeding that would need to be worked up....thus eliminating having to endure biopsies down the road.

BUT.  I met with a gyn-onc surgeon and she brought me down from my overboard plan.  She said, "You are the healthiest and thinnest patient I am going to see today."  That was the first thing.  I'm not sick.  This woman deals with women day in and day out that are fighting for their lives and are locked into some crazy shit that I hope to never see.  That's the point of my surgery.  But then she went on to say, "Your uterus is not the thing that is going to kill you.  You are a healthy person.  Going more invasive for the sake of avoiding a nuisance is just inviting the risk of more complications."  Of course!  Duh.  Why didn't I think of it that way?  Because I am kind of a jump-to-worst-case-scenario person.  So it gave me something to think about.  Of course, if they go in and see something abnormal while getting my tubes and ovaries....then the dang uterus will have to come out anyway.  But let's get to that when/if it happens.

So, long story short...I have elected to keep my uterus.  And my regular OBGYN (who I love and adore) is going to perform the surgery.

Second Up.....

And as I was working in the garden today, I got the phone call from the plastic surgeon that my mastectomy has been scheduled for October 26.  More on this later....because I still have some processing to do on it....