Breast cancer was familiar to Mimi, even before she was diagnosed. Her mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer three times. She was treated with a double mastectomy, radiation and chemotherapy. Fifteen years later, she is cancer-free. Mimi’s cousin Annette, her best friend, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009 and passed away from the disease that same year at age 42. Mimi herself was diagnosed with stage I breast cancer in April 2015 at age 45, the same age her mother was first diagnosed. She had a double mastectomy with immediate DIEP flap reconstruction. Later she also had a preventive hysterectomy because the cancer was hormone-receptor-positive. She took tamoxifen and an aromatase inhibitor but has since stopped. Mimi is one of three women whose stories are featured in the Breastcancer.org video series on reconstruction after mastectomy. Listen to the podcast to hear Mimi discuss: how she made her decisions about surgery and reconstruction the positives she believes breast cancer brought to her life what she would say to a woman who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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