How to Survive a Marriage After Mastectomy
Susan Love, MD, MBA, a leading authority on women's health issues, and author of Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book and the breast health expert for Women.com, is here to discuss how a couple's marriage survives when the wife has to have a mastectomy.
Married for two and half years, Pam Minkoff and her husband Steve's dreams of parenthood were shattered when the doctor told her that her right breast was cancerous. To treat her disease, Pam decided to have a mastectomy.
What happens to a married couple's dream to have a family when the wife has to have a mastectomy? Pam and Steve Minkoff faced this nightmare five and a half years ago. Pam and Steve went in for a routine checkup to start to have a baby, instead Pam, at the age of 35, was told that she had breast cancer.
"I had very mixed emotions," says Pam. "My husband was very supportive. We didn't have a lot of dialogue about it. Steve came with me to have the biopsy." The surgeon called a week later and told Steve they had found cancer. Steve didn't believe him. "I rehearsed how I was going to tell her," recalls Steve. When Pam got home, Steve told her that the doctor called to say that she had breast cancer. Pam gasped and cried at the news. "We spent a couple of days crying. We thought we were going to have a family instead we found out she had breast cancer." Pam thought that she would never have kids.
Steve jumped in and started doing research. Pam and Steve went back to the doctor's office, and he told her the only way to cure it 100% is to have a mastectomy on her right breast. "The focus the whole time was to be able to have a family. We were given other choices of treatment that included a lumpectomy with chemo and radiation treatment or the mastectomy. The mastectomy had the greatest chance of a complete recovery and allowed us to maybe have children someday," says Pam. "We had a second opinion and the doctor backed our decision to have a mastectomy." Pam had surgery on April 17, 1995.
Pam had reconstructive surgery on the right breast. During the entire procedure, the only point of reference that Pam could relate her experience to, was her mother's experience about 26 years ago. The surgical procedure was not as sophisticated as it is now, so her mother's surgery left a big scar down her chest.
Steve says that he never questioned Pam's body image. He knew she had to do what she needed to do in order to save her life.
A year after, Steve began to think about everything they had been through as a couple. Steve's dad had died in November, and they bought a house in February and Pam was diagnosed with breast cancer in March. The events finally took a toll on Steve, and six months after Pam's surgery, Steve sat down and cried. "I cried for a week."
"My doctors all said that I had to wait for two years before I could have kids," says Pam. They thought the pregnancy might bring the cancer back. So Pam went to an oncologist who, after a lengthy exam and told them tat there was a 1% chance of recurrence. He asked Steve, "if anything happens to Pam will you be willing to raise these kids on your own." Both Steve and Pam knew they were willing to take the chance.
They went on vacation in June 1996, and before July 4th, Pam knew she was pregnant. Their son Ryan Lawrence, is now three and half years old. He was born on March 24, 1997. Pam and Steve didn't worry during the pregnancy that the cancer would come back. Alissa Joy was born 22 months ago and the couple feels blessed to have the two children.
Pam says her pediatrician has never dealt with a woman with one breast. She did breast feed her daughter with her left breast. "I firmly believe that you need to talk to each other," says Pam about their ordeal. "For me, it put the values on the relationship. If we could get through this we can get through anything."
Interview with Dr. Susan Love
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Love says that if a couple's relationship was strong to begin with, a crisis like breast cancer can bring them closer together, like the Minkoffs. But if there were problems beforehand, the stress of the disease makes everything worse and divorce is often the result.
Love says that the a couple face emotional issues when the diagnosis of breast cancer is received. In the beginning the issue of living or dying overwhelms everything. But as things get under control, the questions surrounding issues like intimacy between the couple and the wife feeling unattractive after surgery--such issues come to the front. Couples that are having such problems should get counseling sooner, rather than later. The most important thing is that they communicate--talk to each other about their feelings.
Love says that it takes a good man, and a good relationship to survive breast cancer.