If you happen to be someone who has seen my social media sharings during the last several months, you may have already found that I have been regularly supporting a FREE app that helps to improve shared decision making in matters pertaining to breast cancer treatment and breast reconstruction. And as the options/choices continue to expand on all levels, this information is becoming more important than ever.
If you are someone who is supporting a previvor or a breast cancer survivor, your ability to have access to updated information that can be discussed with a person’s medical team is a great advantage for that person.Barbara Jacoby
Therefore, I am so proud to share with you the Breast Advocate app and its developer and renown plastic surgeon, Dr. Minas Chrysopoulo. Dr. Chrysopoulo created this app along with the input of more than 20 breast cancer survivors, both male and female, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am to be a part of this great project. Now that FREE app for breast cancer patients and caregivers and anyone who is looking for help and support about a cancer journey is available for download on both iPhone and Android devices so that you will have immediate access to all of the information at the earliest possible time. And regardless of whether you or someone you know is a previvor or has just been diagnosed with breast cancer or whether you are a cancer survivor at any stage in treatment or have completed treatment, there is help and guidance and information available to you that you may need now or at sometime in the future.
If you are like me. I had no information available to me about reconstruction at the time of my surgeries and was offered only one option when I was diagnosed a second time and my cancer surgeon recommended a double mastectomy. However, as I started receiving questions about this aspect of treatment since that time, I decided to research the subject. And, boy, have things really changed. I became aware of the fact that based upon an individual’s course of treatment and in what step of treatment they are advised of their options, their decisions are as individual as the rest of their treatment options.
As I continued my research, I learned so much about the impact that radiation and chemotherapy will have on reconstruction and depending upon whether you already have had breast surgery and any of these treatments, your options may change. As of the last time that I checked, there were 12 different ways to administer radiation alone. Therefore, it is so important to know your options and to incorporate a plastic surgeon into the decision making as soon as possible so that this professional can help you identify the best options available to you on an individual basis.
And if you are someone who is supporting a previvor or a breast cancer survivor, your ability to have access to updated information that can be discussed with a person’s medical team is a great advantage for that person. Therefore, you too are encouraged to download this free app so that you are in a better position to advocate for someone else. As I have learned, the more we know, the better we are equipped to make the best decisions possible with regard to our medical care and no one is ever going to be more vested in our personal health and decisions than we are individually.
Barbara Jacoby is an award winning blogger that has contributed her writings to multiple online publications that have touched readers worldwide.