A woman named Sharon Donnelly, 54, had to fight to have both her breasts removed. After surviving breast cancer, she wanted to have her other breast removed out of fear her cancer would return. Doctors told her the breast was healthy, and initially refused to do the second operation. But after a lot of convincing, and writing a nine page letter to her doctor, Sharon got surgeons to operate – which is when they discovered cancerous tissue in the remaining breast.
‘Every time you look down and see one boob there, you think it [the cancer] is going to come back,’ said Sharon. ‘That thought will never leave you. ‘I thought it I had it removed I would have the best chance of surviving the cancer. ‘I never wanted the reconstruction,’ she said. ‘Reconstruction takes a long while to get over. It’s a series of surgeries. I didn’t want that; I just wanted to get on with my life.’
Sharon says that having the surgery allowed her to enjoy the last moments with her husband John, who died in March this year. ‘John fought for me have it and I’m so grateful for that because I recovered and we had the last nine months together,’ she said. Having both breasts removed gave Sharon peace of mind – and allowed her to feel comfortable with her body again. ‘The most liberating thing of all is I have not thought about cancer since.’ Sharon hopes that as well as showing other women they don’t need breasts to feel beautiful, sharing her story will make it easier for women with breast cancer to go for a removal rather than a reconstruction.
‘There are a lot of women wanting removal and having to fight to convince surgeons,’ she explains. ‘I’m angry that I still had to go through that. I’m not angry for me anymore but other ladies are still going through it and it should not be like that. ‘You don’t need a psychologist to have reconstruction but you do to have removal of a supposedly healthy breast. ‘I want to fight for patients to have the options.’
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