Vac Machine- to promote healing

crusader1

Hi All,

My mastectomy was on January 5th and the breast did not heal,as a matter of fact the center has died.

I am now  scheduled to have the dying skin on my breast removed as well as the expander. Then the PS thinks he will put in a Vac to help in the healing. This will speed up the time so I will be able to start chemo.

I would be eager to hear from any women who had used the Vac. What was it like to carry around?

Thanks again..

Francine

Hugs to All..........

jeezy

I know its been a while since you posted this and I hope that your situation has improved, but I wanted to respond since I had a similar experience and wanted to hopefully help others.

 I was diagnoised on 2/23/09 and elected to have a mastectomy since this was my second go round with BC.  I was originally diagnosed in 1996 with Stage III ER/PR- (no HER2 tests then).  I had a radical mastectomy and 8 TAC treatments.

 The second dx on 2/23/09 made me elect a mastectomy once again even though they thought the cancer was Stage I.  Fortunately I made the right decision because as it turns out I'm Stage II ER/PR-. HER2+.  I am scheduled for 6 TCH and 1 H every three weeks for a year.  I start Thursday.

Anyway, after my mastectomy I had tunneling and dead tissue so the doc prescrived  V.A.C. therapy.  This was a blessing as I healed very quickly (2 weeks to the day).  I still have a little opening, but it looks better each day and I hope that it will close off by mid week.  It was a litle cumbersome, but you could carry it like a purse and the alternative of -6-8 weeks healing time just wasn't an option for me.  I didn't have much pain at all and the dressing changes were not as difficult as others has expressed.  The biggest problem was the smell.  By the end of the second week, it smelled like a dead fish when the dressing was removed so it was really gross, but once it was removed and I was able to shower and clean it really well that was over too. 

 I will be happy to answer any questions anyone has about the V.A.C. therapy, I would highly recommend it.

Thanks...

Jenn