On a personal note, my grandmother never took estrogen and her bones were as brittle as glass sculpture. She was always having very painful breaks. This is inspite of the fact that she ate plenty of dairy and calcium and danced every day until she died at 83 of stroke.

Again, you have to look at the lesser of two evils. Perhaps spend some of your later years on estrogen and some not on HRT. There are fortunately also if the need arises, new drugs that increase bone density. (However, no one knows the long term side-effects of these either, do they?) It's a tough decision.