Hi Jess and sorry to hear of your mum’s diagnosis. 

I had a mastectomy on one side and opted for an immediate implant reconstruction. There are other reconstruction options too using tissue from elsewhere on the body. I wasn’t keen on this personally as it meant a longer recovery time (not practical as I have young kids).

Or there is the option to go flat and to be honest it’s something I considered.

It’s confusing looking at all the options but bear in mind they may not all be options anyway! It comes down to the treatment plan and individual circumstances/body shape/breast shape. For instance, most of the tissue flap options were not available to me due to lack of tissue or other injuries in the affected area. 

Like your mum I really wasn’t sure what to do and it wasn’t until I’d met with the surgeon that the mists began to clear. I asked his opinion on what my best options were - and the pros and cons of each. 

From this I learned that I was a good candidate for an implant due to my breast shape but delayed reconstruction would take the implant option off the table as radiotherapy damages the skin. So if I wanted an implant it had to be done immediately.

The surgeon said if my implant fails due to the radiotherapy or other issues, I could have a new implant or a tissue flap recon...or obviously there remains the option to go flat. So I felt like the immediate recon with implant left me with most options going forward. 

This was my thought process, obviously your mums might be different based on her situation, but I hope it gives you an idea of how I made sense of the myriad of options.

To add, my implant was “ADM assisted”, meaning they use a layer of pig tissue to create a hammock for the implant to sit in. This gives a more natural result with the droop in the breast.

My mother had the lat dorsi (shoulder flap) reconstruction many years ago before ADM was available. (Silicone implants would therefore tend to stick straight out page 3 style which unsurprisingly she did not want).

Mum said if she was having her op today she’d go for what I did. Saying that, the lat dorsi has worked well for her, though she did suffer from an infection in her back after the op which took weeks to heal up. Such are the risks with tissue flaps.