Tradeoffs

This whole treatment thing is a series of tradeoffs; it's interesting.

To remove healthy tissue or not to remove healthy tissue

The cellulitis infection I'm currently working through is in my right breast, which was perfectly healthy up until I had it removed along with the embattled left breast.

So it's kind of a bummer that now the right breast is having issues caused by us messing with it- i.e. inserting a foreign object (tissue expander) into it.

But, had I left the right breast intact and just done a left side mastectomy, there's a possibility that in future years cancer could have developed in that right breast. And then I would have to do all of This Nonsense all over again, that time focusing on treating the right breast. And since we removed both breasts, the chance of cancer popping up in the right breast (or, god forbid, again in the left) is far, far lower, since there's hardly any natural breast tissue left in either breast.

(Interestingly, in a mastectomy procedure, breast surgeons do not remove 100% of the breast tissue; there's a tiny bit left at the top of the breast, meaning your chance of recurrence does exist, although it's as infinitesimal as it's possible to get it, surgically, in this day and age.) #FundMedicalResearch

Mammograms/detection

If I had had a mammogram any earlier in time, and if a medical professional had observed something on that mammogram they wanted to study further, then yes, probably there would have been less cancer in my body to treat and I would have needed less treatment, and fewer types of treatment (surgeries plural, chemo, radiation, pills) overall. However, if I'd gotten a mammogram any *later* than September 2024, who knows how much the cancer would have spread by then, and I'd be worse off than I am now.

What you really want to avoid is having the cancer roaming around to various parts of your body, bonding with other cancer cells it bumps into, and setting up shop.

To satiate my intellectual curiosity (not because I was considering it), I googled "what happens if you don't treat breast cancer" and was reminded that if cancer remains in the body, untreated, it will eventually find its way to your bones, or liver, or some other essential life organ, settle in and eventually kill you. In a painful manner. Cancer does not go away on its own. Sometimes it's nice to be reminded of the bigger picture. Remind me of this when I'm about a third of the way through chemo... for now, it's time for lunch.