After her breast cancer diagnosis, this woman says the doctor called her decisions ‘- But resistance and independence helped her get breast reconstruction

If Tanya Persaud had her way, no other woman in all of Canada would have to navigate the rocky terrain after being diagnosed with breast cancer like she did. When we met her, she didn’t know all the options she had – and she said her decisions were even called “emotional” by one of her doctors.

It all started when Persaud, who lives in the greater Toronto area, thought his lymph nodes “felt amazing” in 2022. She had a fifth tumor removed, and the other five remained in her other uterus.

Flash forward to another Friday in 2024, when Persaud learned that his mother had breast cancer. The following Monday, she remembered starting a “science course” with her mother’s surgeon, then sought help from her family doctor amid the genetic risk. Two days later, Perraud received her own breast cancer diagnosis.

Soon, she is fighting cancer alongside her mother, while also fighting for breast reconstruction surgery – an option she didn’t know she had at first, and one she told Yahoo Canada She believes that all women should have access.

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‘It wasn’t me, I was against the plan’

“The one who told me at the hospital when I first saw the surgeon, said: ‘Trust yourself.’ And I didn’t know what that meant,” he explained, explaining that his doctors planned to have radiation after his tumor was removed – and it was suspected that they would not give him another option. For most patients in the first stage, chemotherapy is also not always necessary.

But Persaud was hesitant about radiation therapy because of possible side effects, including skin problems such as changes in skin and sunburn, and possible heart problems. According to the Canadian Cancer Society, other side effects of radiation therapy can include fatigue, hair loss, loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting. In addition, her mother had chosen radiation therapy for her diagnosis and began to describe the side effects she experienced.

Persaud will continue to develop his definition of independence as he researches his diagnosis and various treatment options. “I would advise every woman to read all the reports, ask questions like a five-year-old child and talk to other women,” Persaud said, explaining that her friend first told her about the breast formation.

Armed with information from a network of friends and fellow cancer fighters and all of this research, Perraud became the advocate she needed to be. When asked what he would recommend to others in his position, he suggested independence.

“The first question you ask, who is responsible for the result? Is it the doctor, or me? Because at the end of it,” he explained. “Their faces were in front of me every time I did it.”

Dr. WAQQAS Jalil, a plastic surgeon at Form Face and Body in Toronto, explained that there are three main options available to women in Perryaud’s position. These include radiation, mastectomy (flats, in layman’s terms) or breast reconstruction – something I am a leading specialist in.

“The important thing is for everyone to choose, and their choice may include doing it again, and their choice may not include doing it,” Jalil reported to the experimenters. “But they definitely have to have the ability to make that choice, which is important.”

Persaud recalled a visit to his oncologist after his cancer diagnosis was suspected and he said, “I’m here to sell you your life insurance policy.” He applied for a master’s degree, and reportedly told her “good luck” finding a surgeon who would perform the procedure. She then asked for breast reconstruction, and the oncologist said, “This is the best your breasts will ever look.”

A week later, she said she had a follow-up appointment with a surgeon, where she also requested a mastectomy. Persaud added that his active lifestyle and love of exercise are part of his decision to skip radiation, as it would prevent him from going to the gym. Also, a mastectomy was the option my mother chose and offered before she opted for radiation therapy.

“‘Okay,’ The surgeon reportedly said he was making an emotional decision. I think he was making an emotional decision, and that’s what your left breast is doing.”Treat yourself itself. Because I said, ‘What about the other five lumps in my left breast?’ “

Persaud added that part of his primary care team allegedly missed his diagnosis after they failed to image the cancerous tissue that put the cancer. “That’s when I knew it was me, I and I were against the plan,” she said.

It was Jalil, in fact, who wrote the one presentation that Perraud read. That resulted in her being tested to reconstruct her breasts after the mastectomy removed the cancer. For Seryaud, the choice was difficult – but not difficult.

“I knew mentally and emotionally, I didn’t want to walk around with these breasts,” Perraud reported. “As difficult as it was to make that decision, I knew. I felt like my breasts had betrayed me. The part of my body that helped to increase health, was now a decision based on survival.”

How breast reconstruction is changing in Canada

In Canada, Jalil said the most common type of breast reconstruction is focal, but some people can have breasts reconstructed from tissue from other parts of the body. Regeneration of tissue tissue takes longer to heal, about a month to a month and a half, compared to two to three weeks for reconstruction.

“The most popular method that has been around for five to 10 years is doing reconstruction above the muscle, or what we call Pre-Pec.

“Field of reshaping: I can find it interesting, because so many things are changing,” added Jalil. “Even in 10 years, the process has changed once or twice.”

Every October, Jalil and his colleagues, host a meeting of surgeons across the country to establish breast awareness day, which falls on the third Wednesday of the month. This event brings together experts who perform mastectomies across Canada and local plastic surgeons to discuss breast reconstruction, advice and advancements in the field. This event is also open to current patients who may be considering surgery, as well as former patients who want to help the community or want to donate.

In many cases, a patient has multiple specialists involved in their cancer journey. “It can be very exciting to have that many people in the circle of caring for someone,” Jalil said. “So it’s also good to try to take the team out and find different ways to work better alongside each other.”

The surgery was life changing in many ways

Persaud says that during the recovery period after breast augmentation, sleeping on her stomach did not exist. In addition, people cannot stay as strong as before when they hug him.

“If you bend over, sometimes they feel like rocks,” she said. “I was thinking about the nerves, because you don’t have all your nerve endings. You don’t get a nipple lift.”

But for her, the reconstruction was completely worth it – not just because, in her mid-40s, it allowed her to retain a sense of femininity. Persaud also shared how the natural environment felt and looked, realizing that if a stranger were to meet him, he might even know that he has tumors.

“It’s not a boob job and it’s not ‘getting down,’ because it came with a mental and emotional cost,” she said. “And it happens that I give a part of that which I will never see again.”

Jalil emphasized that idea, saying reconstruction can empower people to improve their lives.

“A lot of people would be kind of rebuilding for nothing, but I think that’s the wrong way to think about it,” he said. “I think it’s better to think about how a woman can fit into clothes, their feeling still feels like them, as they have never lost a part of the body, the feeling of femininity, the feeling of feeling complete.”

These days, Perraud has shared his journey in social media to help others. Soon you also plan to become a patient partner, a person who has shared what you have lived in as part of a medical research or project group, which aims to improve the treatment of future patients. In addition, she plans to go to the reconstruction of awareness day events, ready to talk to women who have been diagnosed with their own choice so that they can do theirs: “If it happens to me, there are other women who happen.”

“I actually found my voice on this trip,” Perraud added. “Now, when I talk to other women [who have cancer, what I say is] Is: ‘You deal with the outcome, find your voice, because if you don’t, you’re just another thought. He’s another check mark: ‘Next patient, next file and let’s keep going.’ “

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