Ahmedabad: Jamillah Alaghbari, 48, came all the way from Yemen to Ahmedabad to overcome her psychological and physical complexes that had set in after she got operated for breast cancer some time back. This woman felt inadequate without her breast and therefore, decided to get herself an implant.
“I felt I had lost a significant part of my womanhood. It affected me as much as cancer detection”;, says Jamillah who said that this reconstructive surgery is not offered in her country.
Jamillah underwent radical mastectomy after she was diagnosed with an advance stage of cancer. Dr Shefali Desai of Samved Hospital who heads the breast clinic said that they now get a number of cancer affected women who want a breast implant to fill the place of their organ that had to be surgically removed.
“Earlier, most of women who opted for breast implants were normal women who wanted to alter size of their breasts for cosmetic reason. Now, we get women who are cured of cancer and want their normal selves back”;, said Dr Desai.
Dr Desai said that with younger women being detected with cancer more and more, reconstructive surgery will soon become part of breast cancer treatment. “We however like to wait for chemotherapy and radiation therapy to be over, and the patient to be declared cancer free so that the implants do not interfere with the cancer treatment”, said Dr Desai.