Post-surgery path a personal choice

Re: “Reshaping the options” (Montreal Gazette, Oct. 16)

Quebec has one of the lowest rates of breast reconstruction in North America. This is not for lack of awareness of the procedure. It is because more women understand that their sense of self as it relates to their bodies goes far beyond their breasts.

A woman’s relation to her breasts and losing part or all of them is an exceedingly personal issue.

Many women rightly want to take time after surgery to recover and make sense of what has happened before jumping into the next phase. And the options for how to move forward are becoming more numerous with the “going flat” movement and tattooing.

Instead of a BRA Day event, it would be much more helpful to women for the Canadian Cancer Society and the MUHC to organize an “Options after Surgery” Day for women living with breast cancer.

This could present a whole range of options and the diversity of experiences moving forward for women post-surgery.

Reconstruction after surgery is absolutely an option that can be chosen at any time by a woman. But the imposition of a normative, sexist approach that equates breasts with being a whole woman needs to end. Patricia Kearns, research and networking adviser for Breast Cancer Action Quebec, Montreal