Recovery time from Simple MX

climbergirl

Recovery time from Simple MX

climbergirl

Hey All,

Am looking at an upcoming Mastectomy for the left side (have already done 2 lx and did not get clean margins from DCIS) and am wondering how long it will be until I can:

1. get back to my yoga practice
2. rock climb

Notice that I did not list GET BACK TO WORK !

Am in good shape and the lx were easy......how have people found this? I guess what I am really curious about is if I need a drain.

I do not think that I will be having any nodes taken this time round......any good advice (or previous threads)on what to have on hand for recovery yadda yadda.

Thanks,

climbergirl 

catbert4209

Climber:

Good question!  I had an easy time coming back from my 2 lx, but am a little concerned about coming back from the mastectomy.  

Of course, I have to think about coming back to work--I'd rather be doing yoga!!!!!

Cat 

12954

My dr told me nothing about what I can or can't do and I didn't ask.

i tried a simple yoga class one week after mast. ( not the power or high heat yoga)  I heavily modified many poses. since so much of yoga is about listening to your body and modifying I was ok. The workout was not strenuous and just to stretch a little. ( really tired the next day, but I felt human) My recovery was simple ( surgery Wed- drains out Friday) but I can't imagine rock climbing for quite a while. Reaching can cause sharp pains now ( 3 weeks out). Small motions are fine, but large arm motions are still uncomfortable at times. Trish

caaclark

I had a lumpectomy with nodes removed before chemo.  For me the lumpectomy was a longer recovery than the mast.  Both were outpatient procedures for me and I had a drain both times.  I think it came out both times around day 6 or 7.  I remember it staying in a few days more for the mx.

I am in pretty good shape and had been running a couple days a week during chemo but after the mast. I gave my body a complete rest for several weeks.  I just think I needed it after chemo and surgery (x2) and I was about to start radiation so I did not want to push it.  My docs always say to listen to your body.  If something hurts-stop and wait to recover a little more.

I am not really a yoga girl-more into running- so I can't help you there.  But, I would think that gentle stretching would be good as soon as you feel up to it.

nagem

I'm a yoga enthusiast too, so I understand the urge to get back to practice. I had a bilateral mastectomy a year ago, with SNB on the prophylactic side. I was back to easy yoga as soon as the drains came out, about a week later. I was in the hospital for just 24 hours (my choice to leave a day early since I felt good and had a noisy roommate) and was led through a series of simple stretches before I left, so you can see I had a pretty easy time of it right from the beginning. Didn't need the pain meds. Just go slow, focus on your breath, remember that you'll be back to your full vigorous practice sooner if you avoid injury early on. That said, I think yoga is the absolute best exercise both mentally and physically for dealing with this particular kind of surgery. Good luck--and namaste!

Raye99

Climbergirl -

With my first mast, they took 9 nodes, so that recovery was a bit tougher - although not horrible. I too run, but also do pilates. I was able to do pilates about 3 weeks post mast.

Last summer, I had proph mast with no nodes removed - it was pretty much a breeze with the exception of the pain in the a$$ drain - I felt pretty good a week (or maybe sooner) after surgery.

Raye

wishiwere

Masectomy on thursday with 4 nodes on thursday, home friday am.  Drain was out the following wednesday. I was cleaning house (vaccumming, sweeping and mopping up) sunday morning with the good arm, as mom and company were coming to town.

The other (surgical arm)....wellllllllll...something happened in surgery when they put the arm overhead and I'm still fighting a rotary cuff problem from that   After chemo I'll be seeing an ortho for that and hopefully back to gardening/landscaping by spring.  Hoping to not have a tear, but the PT thought perhaps it was more involved that first thought.

purplemb

Climber...

I too had a left mast, and was involved in Martial arts,  training for my black belt... I took the 2 full weeks off as recommened by my DR.. I did stretches every day and hooked up with a yoga / massage therapist for more individual treatments... I then went back to classes..( after 2 weeks)... obviosly listening to my body...(most of the time) ... so if you have any ? PM me if you want...

MB

SusaninSF

Climber,

I do a very intense form of Iyengar yoga and my teacher said I couldn't come back to his class for 3 months after surgery. I still practised yoga every day on my own as usual, even some restorative poses the day after surgery. Viparita Karani and Setu Bandha (gentle version) are particularly helpful as both poses get blood to your chest area. I also did the mild stretching exercises given to me by the doctor.

I had reconstruction and multiple complications followed by deconstruction so it ended up being a year before I went back to my regular class so I worked with a private teacher during that time.  Once the implant was gone, it didn't take me long to heal up and get active again. Since you are not having reconstruction, you should heal very quickly.

If you explain your situation to your yoga teacher I'm sure he/she can modify what you do in class as you heal. You will need to be very careful not to overstretch your chest area while you are healing.

I believe they always put in at least one drain after a mastectomy but you will probably only have it in for a week or so. The drain is not so bad. I even went to work with it after one of my complication "fixing" surgeries. No one even noticed I had it.

Take care and ask away if you have any other questions!

-Susan

climbergirl

Great,

This is exactly the type of info that I need...as far as my teachers, they are both Iyengar and have no problem with modifications. Matter of fact one of them is really great with them.  Susan, is your teacher Donald Moyer by any chance? I can't imagine my teachers refusing me class, but then I am more of an intermediate student, although my practice tends toward vigourous as well and I have a long standing home practice that is nice as well. Yay for restorative poses! I am pretty good at easing back when I need to and as far as climbing I plan to have to take a month or 2. It takes a while to trust the arm on that side again but with climbing sometimes it is the footwork that is WAY more important. That is the secret to great climbing!

At present, I am more concerned with the traveling part of the trip that I have planned on Feb 29. Maybe I should wait until after? 

~climber 

SusaninSF

Climber,

My class teacher is Manouso Manos. He does set up special poses during class for those with certain injuries or pregnant but I think because my private teacher spoke to him they must have decided together that keeping with just the private would be better until the wounds were fully healed. Manouso did recommend poses that we could work on. I am only an intermediate student as well as I have only been practising for 6 years.

When is your surgery? I would think you would want to be close to your doctor for at least the first 3 weeks. You also shouldn't be doing any even moderately heavy lifting for at least that long. Perhaps I'm too conservative though since I had so many complications. Definitely ask your doctor.

- Susan

climbergirl

Hi There,

It is next Friday, so I think that it will be fine. It may be that three weeks sounds right to go easy....I will take off from work for 2 weeks and see how that is. My job is more geeky and mentally demanding than physically demanding, but I did notice that post lumpectomies I really needed to sleep in for the mornings....made a difference!

~climber 

SLH

Hi climber,

I just got back from having my implant removal surgery today, and I wanted to give you some info from the post-surgery sheet I got.  It says :

"You should not exercise for AT LEAST 1 MONTH after surgery. Remember, the more your heart pumps blood through damaged cells in the operative area, the more bruises and swelling you will have. So if you want to heal properly, rest and allow your body to heal. After 1 MONTH, you should be fully healed, and you can resume normal activities." 

"Avoid aerobics, jogging, swinging your arms and heavy lifting. DO NOT RAISE YOUR PULSE FOR 1 MONTH."

sally 

Erica3681

Sally (SLH),

How did your surgery go?

Barbara 

climbergirl

DO NOT RAISE YOUR PULSE FOR 1 MONTH.

 Who the hell wrote those instructions? HELLO...I will be in a hospital and that will make my pulse higher than anything thing else!

  

 That seems a bit much.....I have not heard the 1 month thing from anyone that has done this.....interesting. Keeping the area open and keeping blood *moving* is key to healing. Stagnation = a problem.

I would think that this would be more along the lines of if I were doing recon where the pec muscle would be involved. But then everyone is different. I am doing the simple Mx so that I can avoid being inactive, not doing yoga for a month is simply not an option for me....ask my husband I will let you know what I think of the instructions post op! I may very well change my opinion. Also will ask my surgeon what she thinks as she knows how well I have done with my other surgeries....I did not need any of the pain meds and was able to use just advil right after. Sally how are your pec muscles doing at this point?

  What I do know which worked for me for my 2 lumpectomies was:

No red wine one week before or alcohol

No vitamin E or advil products the week before

Tons of hydration beforehand and tons of sleep after

Acupuncture weekly both before and after surgery

High protein food 

Lots of gentle yoga starting 2 days post op  to keep the shoulder open and moving normally ~ nothing crazy. My arm was weak but it came back slowly but surely.

Thanks for all the woman wisdom with all this! 

~climbergirl who had a nice climb yesterday off to buy a pack for my

drain @ REI.  I could use my chalk bag and a couple of carabiners come to think of it! 

SLH

Hi again climber,

I think this PS is a little on the paranoid conservative side (see my post for deconstruction).  But I do want to give you a heads-up on a couple things. For one, use Tylenol after surgery, not Aspirin, Advil, and Motrin which are all blood thinners.

And two, before my bilateral I had a very deep MRI core (@#&*!) biopsy a week before.  But since I was having my bilateral soon, I worked vigorously in the yard the next day and ended up with a huge hematoma.  It didn't really matter, since I had the breast taken off anyway.  But when my sister had her hysterectomy she was taking a blood thinner to prevent clots, and then went out walking a few days after.  She ended up with a huge hematoma above her bikini-line scar that left a shelf of skin from being stretched out by the pool of blood.  She had to go back to get some of it removed a year later.

Go slow. Even if your head is in the game, let your insides have some TLC.

sally 

SLH

Hi Barbara,

I wrote a message to your home page.  I'll be spouting off in awhile about my surgery!

sally 

SusaninSF

Sally,

How are you feeling? Did your surgery go as expected? I know when I was deconstructed I felt a lot of contradictory feelings. Glad to be rid of the implant, sad that, after so much effort, the reconstruction didn't work for me, among other things.

Climbergirl,

I agree with Sally that you do want to be cautious. Also, keep in mind that a mastectomy is a much bigger operation than a lumpectomy. After my lumpectomies I was back at work in two days. Never needed any pain meds, not even Tylenol. Right after my mast (first day), and some of this could have been because of the recon though it was not my pecs that hurt, I could barely brush my teeth or feed myself. They shoot you up with pain meds during the operation so I didn't have any excruciating pain but I did take Extra Strength Tylenol several times to help me sleep. They take a lot of breast tissue under your arm around the side of your chest and that can make using that arm very uncomfortable. I had a right mast and am right handed.

Also, no need to stop doing yoga. As I'm sure you know, only some asanas raise your pulse. Restorative poses that don't involve stretching your chest area will help you to relax and heal. These poses are every bit as important as poses that require a lot of strength. Don't know if you practice pranayama at all but that can also be very beneficial.

- Susan

climbergirl

Thanks Susan/Sally,

So now that you have both de-constructed can you tell me what prompted the decision and if either of you are going to try any flap surgeries? I pretty much rules out implants a long time ago.

I do not know how I will feel about a DIEP much later.....and most likely will not decide on it until much much later. 

~climbergirl 

Anonymous

Hi Climbergirl, I'm new to this and have read this post. Like you i also have DCIS and have had an excisional biopsy so far. Need to go back again, my choice for reexcision or mast. I'm trying to find others who have DCIS with same experience. Let me know how you do......best wishes, hope your recovery is fast. Viv

SusaninSF

Climbergirl,

A combination of factors prompted my decision to deconstruct. I had complication after complication. My wounds were not healing because I had a lot of fluid build up that kept leaking through the wounds. I also had a couple of infections. In addition, I found the implant very uncomfortable, particularly when doing yoga. It stuck out like a softball on my chest when doing back bends. It looked bizarre and it would be really embarassing to be in class like that.

At this point at least, I'm not interested in doing DIEP because I just don't want any more surgeries. With DIEP or any other procedure using my own tissue, it would mean more scars and wounds that might not heal. If you take a look at the reconstruction board you'll see horror stories from women who have had to be on a wound vac for months. This is a machine you attach to your wound to help it to heal. You can't really even leave the house with it on. Granted, this is probably a very small percentage of women who have DIEP surgery but I don't want to take a chance that I might be one of that small percentage.

I enjoy my active life of yoga, dance, skiing, etc. I spent nine months with very restricted activity and don't want to elect to do anything that might cause me to have even more down time, not for yet another fake breast. Perhaps, if I could get my old breast back, it would be worth it but that's just not possible.

Perhaps some day there will be some simpler procedure that gets around all of these down sides. Reconstruction techniques are constantly improving. I'm not opposed to having a reconstructed breast but there are just too many downsides to the current procedures. I expect to live another 50-60 years so a lot could happen in that time!

Cheers, Susan

climbergirl

Susan all I can say is I hear ya on all *ALL* of it........and to crazyD Viv I can say this:

My story was a bit more complicated than just DCIS, I had a 1.9 cm of invasive and a pos sentinel node. Your decision in dealing with this is a hard one no doubt about it. I do not care what anyone says, DCIS is still controversial and although my surgeon still considers it a cancer (duh, she is a surgeon after all) Dr Love who is the Queen of BC considers it a pre-Cancer that we still do not understand. I agree with her and I think that there has to be a better treatment for this than just giving women mastectomies. Radiation is effective with DCIS and I think that in the future we will be using intraductal radiation more and more for DCIS and getting it earlier! Daisy remember that Rads is effective with DCIS in tandem with your surgery but also remember that the outcomes of individuals runs the gamut. Some women die in their 80's and are found to have DCIS that never went invasive. I have spoken to some women that had lx for DCIS, did RADS and walked away with a cancer free stamp from their doctors only to have a reoccurance 2 yrs later and wished they had done a mastectomy right off the bat. There is no guarantee with any of this because ultimately all of these doctors are kind of making an educated guess, based on an average....just like you and me and still not understanding the genesis of this disease.

My order of operations is thus far

2 lumpectomies with 3 pos margins with DCIS leftover

chemo standard 4 AC 2 taxol(abraxane actually) I skipped the last 2 based bad bad joint muscle stuff(which I am still dealing with 3 months out) and that it may be useless for Estrogen pos women(I am Est/Prog pos)

Mastectomy now

Rads in the Spring

I will not be doing tamoxifen/or anything else that screws with hormones

I have never woken up in the night worrying that I will die from this....I just do not feel that way. I lost both of my parents to other Cancers (all most likely environmental) and have a nice vivid experience of what it looks like to die of Cancer. What does keep me up is the threat that these treatments bring to my quality of life and my ability to maintain a strong body and hence mind. I am sorry, but for some of us going for walks does not constitute exercise. Doctors do not seem to understand this and are not used to having patients come in that are like "Well um when can I rock climb again?" Which was another reason that I am avoiding things like implants right away. I also do not trust the FDA.......being a biologist myself. Laughing

I talked to a great lady from the One on One program at Dana last week and she also did 2 lumpectomies before her Mx as she also did not get good enough margins......and we both agreed that we needed to have both of those lx to get to where we are now. My surgeon is Michelle Gadd is she is simply kick-ass. Even she wanted me to have the Mx right away just based on the diffuse aspect of the DCIS ~ but I did not want that. She is really all about getting the job done(removing cancer) and having excellent cosmetic outcome and she was quite honest with me about the chances of getting those last three margins on the re-excision. It was 50-50 and I was willing to take the chance. But again, I am more comfortable with higher risk than most women. I had laughably easy recoveries from my lumpectomies and the cosmetic outcome has been commented on by every plastics person that I went to in researching options. You would never know that I had 2 surgeries....but after Friday you will!

Did your surgeon give you any idea how spread out the DCIS is and how large are you? Also ask for the chances of success in getting those margins!

Good luck with deciding and remember you do not have to rush this!

XO

~climber-g 

Anonymous

Hi Climbergirl, so far I have had 1LX which also served as my biopsy. My path report states that it was 4cm,comedo form,calcs present,margins involved.Nuclear grade was set as 2 and necrosis stated comedo. ER and PR neg. I am 49. I am a small B cup, usually just wear the sport bras......LOL, nothing there to bounce. I live in Canada, don't know if we are as good at the treatment here as in the US, I seem to find better info on US sites. Surgeon says he now needs to remove golf ball size but didn't say if that would or would not obtain clear margins. That seems huge to me and I think it would be disfiguring. Excuse me if I sound naieve but I'm learning what I can.

climbergirl

Crazy Daisy,

No worries, you are inthe right place to ask your questions....this board is so important!

My coworker has a mini putting range in his office and I just went to look at a golf ball. Next to me, that is pretty big and so maybe cosmetically not something that you would be happy with post lumpectomy. I got the feeling from my doctor that it is almost easier to work from a Mx with recon if you get past a certain point with the size of a lumpectomy. I am sure there are some ladies around that have something to say about that....If I had a golf ball removed from  my left breast I would def need to wear a breast form of some kind and on top of that knowing that I still may not get my margins may push me to a MX. Has your surgeon talked to you about reconstruction options for such a large lumpectomy?

~climbergirl 

Anonymous

I've only seen him 2x, once for my path report.....at which point I was stunned when he told me and asked how I felt about a mast. Couldn't answer him on the spot like that and not knowing anything much at that point asked about re-excision. Went for 2nd visit and thats when he then said we could try another LX.......so now I'm a little miffed. From all I've read, 4cm>is huge already not knowing the margins. AHHHHHHHHHH, I can't get past this yet.

Anonymous

Oh ya , only a mention of reconstruct, not much.

Anonymous

Hey climbergirl

 Thinking about you. Do you go this week for surgery? Hope it goes well and your back on the rocks real fast. I'd really like to know how it went as I am seriously considering a MX as opposed to another LX after all I've read. Going to talk to the doc. on Jan 21/08.

Any advice? Think I'll take a golf ball with me.......LOL