By Dr Miriam Mutebi
Breast cancer surgery may take hours, but the real weight is in the conversations: about choices, dignity, and what life looks like after.
It’s breast cancer awareness month, and time to share the ‘tea’ on what to expect with cancer surgery.
You don’t just need a surgeon. You need clarity, empathy, and space to decide what’s right for you.
Here are the options you’ll usually hear about:
- Breast conservation; preserving as much of your breast as possible.
- Mastectomy; removing the whole breast, sometimes followed by: immediate reconstruction (done at the same time) or delayed reconstruction (done later, after initial cancer surgery or other treatments)
Take some time. Most women need more than one consultation to process these choices fully. It’s okay to ask, to pause, to think, ask more questions and think through how each option fits into your life and treatment plan.
Recovery is often quicker than you expect. By the same day, most women are up and walking. Many go home within one to few days, with steady healing over the next few weeks.
And pain? We take it seriously. In fact, we often say (half joking, fully serious) that pain in the hospital is unacceptable. The aim is to keep you active after surgery and send you home on the same effective pain relief you had while in the hospital, so you stay comfortable enough to live your day-to-day life.
In the end, we don’t just want to remove the cancer. We also want to restore a patient’s dignity, confidence, and choice.
This article was originally posted by Miriam Mutebi here.
Dr Miriam Mutebi is a Breast Surgical Oncologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at the Aga Khan University Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. She is the President of the African Organization for Research and Training in Cancer (AORTIC-Africa)
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