Abstract

What does it mean to have breast cancer when your partner is a woman? How do LB women feel about the prospect of losing their breast? Are partners more or less empathic? Do they display more or less supportive behaviours? Subtle and nuanced understandings of the complex interplay of their identities, experiences and values in their everyday lives and in their interactions with providers of services; Decisions not to undergo breast reconstruction: they encountered attitudes based on heteronormative constructions of femininity from surgeons providing care; NICE guidelines which recommended reconstruction immediately following surgery to remove the breast.