For Cancer Patients, Anguish Grows Over Deferred Surgery As Risk Rises
With states starting to reopen, bans on "nonessential" surgeries are beginning to lift, too. But there's a huge backlog of cases that have only gotten more urgent and heartbreaking for many patients.
Last June, days after her 40th birthday, Silver felt a lump in her left breast that turned out to be a tumor that had spread to her lung and liver.
For eight months, Silver underwent chemotherapy that reduced the masses to operable size. But last month, her oncologist explained a mastectomy would also require an additional procedure to take skin off her back, known as a "flap" to cover the wound.
That secondary surgery was considered cosmetic and therefore nonessential, according to the
