Wellness Wednesday is sponsored by Intermountain Health.
Breast cancer strikes one in eight women. Caught early, treatment is usually successful. But there’s a part of treatment that is covered by insurance that every woman should know about.
We’re talking about breast reconstruction. Doctors say it’s key to have that conversation as you begin cancer treatment.
“I got diagnosed in September of 2022.”
Lindsey Roberds knew she might face breast cancer because of family history...but not at 37 years old.
“You feel shattered when you first get diagnosed, you feel like something's going to be taken from you. You feel like you're kind of alone, or you're just kind of fractured as a woman, and having a really amazing team to help pull you back together…to bring you back to where you were before. The whole team did that. And Dr. Shale played a huge role in that,” she said.
Dr. Christopher Shale is a plastic surgeon at Mckay Dee Hospital in Ogden.
“We can do so many different things, but everybody has their own ideal in their mind, and that's what we're trying to help them get to,” he said.
Dr. Shale specializes in reconstruction. He joined Lindsey's treatment planning team from the start. With a young family and having watched her mom and aunt go through the same thing, she knew what she wanted.
“Once it was confirmed that, you know, that it was breast cancer, my mind was already made up that I wanted a double mastectomy because I didn't want to have to go through this again. My aunt did. She did a lumpectomy the first time around, and then hers came back,” said Roberds
“Just the advances that the medical field has in in that arena…I knew that something wasn't going to be taken away from me, right? My womanhood, my sense of identity. Like I knew that I could get that that that I could get that restored,” she said.
Lindsey's knowledge went beyond what most women know before a diagnosis.
“Maybe 60% of women never even hear that there is such a thing as breast reconstruction. Don't know that that's an option. And a lot of times for us to do what we can do, we need to be at the first surgery, at the lumpectomy, or at the mastectomy surgery, because then there's a lot of things that we can do right then so that we can give them the result that they're kind of hoping for, or maybe didn't even know they wanted, but didn't think it was a possibility,” said Shale.
Roberds shares, “Even if you feel silly going in saying, ‘Hey, I found this,’ go get it checked. They'll make sure that if it is nothing, it is nothing. And then you can put your mind at ease. then just be that self-advocate, find that care team that listens to you and really takes your wishes and puts them into action,” said Roberds.
All of us can help make sure women benefit from Lindsey’s hard-earned wisdom. Take breast health seriously and ask about options for reconstruction if you are diagnosed with breast cancer. Insurance is required to pay for it, and it works far better if it is integrated into care from the start.
