How do I prepare for a mastectomy? 7 tips

justsayom

Nothing can completely prepare you for the unknown, but, from my own experiences, I would like to share my knowledge and perspective.

1. Get updated tests: Your doctor's office will ask for a current breast MRI and standard blood test. They want to make sure that everything is normal or you cannot have the procedure. In some cases, they may ask for additional tests like an EKG and a lung scan.

2. Medications not to take: Check on which meds not to take prior to surgery, usually 10 days prior. This list will include both prescription and over the counter medications, like aspirin, ibuprofen, vitamins and supplements.

3. Purchase your post-surgical bra: Talk to your doctor's office about the specific brands and options that they recommend. You will wear this about 1 week after your surgery, when your drains are removed. My doctor's office recommended that I get two sizes, my size and one size larger, both in cup and chest size. The larger is to wear for when you are swollen after surgery.

4. What to take with you to the hospital: Find out the essential items that you need. Here is a list of what my doctor's office recommends and recommendations I have gotten from former patients.
•Of course, there are standard things like toiletries, toothpaste, and a toothbrush.
•Lip balm is recommended, as your lips may get chapped after surgery.
•Lozenges are suggested as your throat will be sore after surgery.
•Silk pajamas are recommended to help you easily slide in and out of bed. You really only need pajama bottoms, but you will use the set for recovery at home.
•Two small travel pillows, one for under each arm. I found pillows for $3.99 each at Bed Bath and Beyond. They also sell travel pillow case covers. You can also use one of these pillows under the seat belt for the ride home.
•Baggy button down shirts are easiest for wearing with the drains. I found pajama tops that button down in silk and also in cotton. I found pajama sets at TJ Maxx and Marshalls and silk pajama sets at JC Penney's and Victoria's Secret all that have button down tops and drawstring pants. Make sure to get a size larger than you normally wear, as you will be swollen after surgery and your will have the bulky drains. Again, for the hospital only the bottoms are necessary.
•A toddler's leak proof "sippy" cup is recommended so drinks don't spill while you are in bed.
•Large safety pins are used to attach the drains to your hospital gown.
•A nice robe that opens up in the front to help you cover up.
•A zip up or button down shirt to wear home from the hospital.
•An mp3 player if you have one to help relax you and enjoy music that you like.

5. Talk to others who have used your doctors: If you can't find someone on the FORCE (Facing Our Risk Cancer Empowered) message boards, your doctor's office should, with no problem, put you in contact with a former patient. The day of my consultation with my doctor, there was a patient in the office who had her surgery 4 weeks before. She came into the office, spent time talking with me and even showed me her new breasts. I also had lunch with a former patient. I came armed with questions to ask her. The experience really put me at ease about going in for surgery. An added bonus, I have a great new friend that I can call before and after my surgery to talk to.

6. Do whatever you need to ease your anxiety: This is obviously a personal thing and can be anything like learning meditation to help you relax the day of the procedure and post operatively. I have decided to go to a hypnotherapist. This idea was advised to me by a friend who had chemotherapy and claims it really helped her with the side effects. The hypnotherapist makes a CD for you after you talk with her for about an hour and tell her your specific concerns. I am most concerned with going under anesthesia and the pain post operatively. You listen to the CD for 21 days prior to the procedure. I am also taking a holistic medication called Arnica Montana. This is supposed to help with inflammation and healing. If you want to take any medication before or after your surgery, check with your doctor to make sure there are no contraindications. I also recommend addressing any concerns with your doctor. I am also concerned about nausea post operatively from the anesthesia. My doctor told me that they will give me medication for nausea prior to surgery.

7. Do something nice for yourself: I am treating myself the week before to a girls' day out. My mom and I are going out for lunch, for a massage, a nice dinner and a Broadway show. You deserve it, so just do it!

Sonant

I am scheduled for my surgery on January 27.  I take medications and a women's multivitamin and iron in the morning.  Is there any other vitamin I can take to help with healing?  I take forever to heal.

LuvLulu07

Sonant    My surgeon said to add vitamin C and also to eat plenty of protein to help the healing process. 

chawkins

Yikes!  My surgeon said no vit C or E  for three weeks before and one week after surgery!

LuvLulu07

My surgeon said no vitamin E but definitely encouraged taking vitamin C - so I bought and took the chewables.  Hmmm - worth asking about? 

exbrnxgrl

Silky pj bottoms made me slide down on the bed! In hospital, I wore one gown the right way and another with the opening in the front, like robe. The hospital pinned my drains to the gown and provided all toiletries. They have several ant-nausea drugs so ask! I like zofran the best. All of the meds, pain, anti-nausea etc. Can be constipating. Make sure you are given a stool softener and eat foods that help you go. Be proactive about this! Pillow, pillows, pillows. U shaped neck pillows are especially goodvfor those who are not normally back sleepers. Good luck to all.

Caryn

Momine

Have enough PJ or other tops on hand that open in the front. Nobody had told me that I would not be able to put on normal shirts for weeks. I ended up cutting up dh's hanes undershirts and pinning them together in the front.

Have ready food in the freezer and line up help around the house for the first two weeks after surgery.

Find out about PT and line that up as well. You WILL want it and you may well need it too. 

MiniMacsMom

For the stool softener consider smooth moves tea.  It actually works and it may be easier than drinking a pill.  I found out about it on the forums and I now use it for during the chemo. 

Also, get your arms measured by a lymphedema therapist before surgery.  Even if you do not have your lymph nodes touched, it's still possible to end up with lymphedema and its harder to know if you have it without baseline measurements. 

Leave pillows in the car, the seatbelts could aggrivate for a while. 

Don't pin your drains to your pants, it could result in a pull-out if you forget and pull down your pants when you potty. 

USE the breather they give you.  The hospital should give you this thing you suck air into, its to force you to inhale deeply and keep from getting pneumonia.  Use it, it will make you feel better and it didn't hurt to use even though I was scared. 

beacon800

Yeah they gave me one of those breather things.  I still have it   I didn't know why they wanted me to do that thing, but now I get it.

I also brought all my own sheets for the hospital bed.  I don't remember if I brought my own pillows but probably, knowing me.  I brought my own food too.  Hah!  It was a lot to move from the car to the room but my sis and my husband helped. 

They encouraged me to get up and walk asap.  I ended up going down to the cafe and having a Starbucks.  It was funny as I had a catheter in my foot and just limped along in my robe with my drains through the (huge) hospital.  I was quite delirious and didn't care a hoot.  I figure they had seen worse   My sister was my guide for that trip.  I still remember it.  I was lucky as I had no pain at all. 

lulubee

I needed a small, quiet fan for the foot of my bed in the hospital - it helped me with post-surgery nausea (YES, ask for anti-nausea meds before surgery! It is NOT FUN to throw up after a BMX!).

An electric toothbrush is wonderful because it cuts down on the arm motion, particularly if you're having reconstruction at the same time; same thing with facial cleansing towelettes.  I put socks on my hands in the hospital because they were always so cold. And my iPod just about saved my life -- too much noise in the hospital corridors and I couldn't sleep without my calm music.

During reconstruction and recovery at home, I slept propped up in my "snowman" -- a big reading pillow with arms and a headrest, from www.bedlounge.com.  My son put a cowbell on my bedside table and it actually came in handy!  My family got me a bed tray also, and that was very helpful.

Get a notebook to keep track of your pain meds (and questions for the doctors)... it's so easy to get all confused and wonder if you took the last dose and then not know whether to pop another one... scary times. 

Good idea to get a lymphedema sleeve fitted before surgery. 

Momine

yes, Beacon, I brought my own muesli and some high-fiber, low-sugar eco cookies. That way I had snacks and a decent breakfast at least.

dogeyed

I would like to add to the list of "to-dos" for surgery.  I had a mastectomy on one side, where they took my boob and sewed it up.  When I came out from anesthesia, I had been rolled into my hospital room when I first became conscious of what was going on.  "Is this my hospital room?"  The girls who rolled me in there told me to slip over from the gurney and get into my bed.  I was so doped up, I did not resist, and wound up falling into the bed and pulling one of my drains loose, bled all over the place, so here are my additional rules:

1.  If you have a mastectomy, DO NOT get in the bed by yourself.  INSIST the nurses get together and move you carefully into your bed.  You should NOT get in the bed by yourself in any way, shape, or form.

2.  On the pain meds that they give you, nurses sometimes disappear for an hour or more at a time.  So, just time it out.  Note the time when you first think of it.  Four hours later, when the nurse asks how you are with the pain, whether you are or not, say, "Yes, I need my pain meds."  Do this every four hours.  And if you take regular meds you're supposed to get, that first time you ask for pain meds, also request your regular meds at the same time.

3.  I did not have an opportunity to wear pajamas; I was in a hospital gown.  I didn't need anything while I was in the hospital.  But bring whatever you want, especially if it's a lumpectomy, you should be more mobile than mastectomy.  I basically stared at whatever was on TV and jabbered about nothing.

Reason I say get that pain medication whether you need it or not every four hours, I went all afternoon without pain meds or my own meds, thinking I was okay, despite my nurse asking about every hour or two.  But then she disappeared and of course that's when I became VERY uncomfortable.  After some crazy talks with the nurse push button front desk people, no one would give me my meds!

So I got up, pulled on my regular clothes, dragged the I.V. pole into the hall and announced my departure so I could go home and get my own meds there.  "Either take this I.V. out of me or I'll pull it out."  Folks crawled out of the woodwork, took out I.V., tried to get me to stay, I said hell no.  Husband got me, I checked out early.  I was SO angry.  Bleeding drains, pain that my own drugs didn't conquer, so had to call breast surgeon in A.M. and he called in a script, and his nurse told me how to take care of my drain wound.  GG

LuvLulu07

dogeyed   yikes - the bed transfer sounds terrible.  I woke up in my hospital room - no idea how they got me there. 

One suggestion that I have that I don't think that I've seen here is to have pockets sewn into a few shirts that can fit the drains.  I pinned drains to my cami or to pants but the pockets worked out well too, and helped alot when I needed to get out to dr.'s appt.'s, etc.   

I agree with dogeyed about pain meds - once in pain it's hard to get under control.  I had a morphine pump in the hospital which worked okay, but didn't know that morphine would make me so nauseated.  If I had to do it again, I would ask the surgeon for alternative pain meds before surgery, in case whatever is prescribed isn't working well.  By the time I figured out that morphine wasn't for me, it was already well into the night and the nurses didn't want to call the doctor to ask for an alternative.

If you will have dressings - Medipore 3M tape works well and is gentler on skin.  I was lucky to come home from the hospital with it.  At home prescription pain meds cause constipation and it can be a big problem.  I was able to alternate Advil and Tylenol only, in order to avoid constipation.  I thought my surgeon was crazy when he suggested to try and go off all pain meds after a week, but I surprised to find out that I was able to.   

And about lymphema - if you have nodes removed, be careful after surgery with exercise, limiting arm movement to below the shoulder. 

Good luck ~  Joy

MiniMacsMom

Joy thats awsome that you are handy also,  My mom and I made belts we used scrap cotton and folded it over and sewed the edges.  Then sewed on some velcro and some pockets.  I liked the pockets on the belt (not attached to pants) because when the drains got heavy the weighed down my neck.  Didn't mention it because I wasn't sure how handy people were with the sewing.  It made a huge difference and it was fun to have pretty fun prints

exbrnxgrl

Once again the huge variation from hospital to hospital looms large! I woke up in the recovery room where I was asked about my pain level and given more meds until I was comfortable. I also thought the bandages around my chest were too tight and my ps came in and loosened them. Family was allowed to visit me, one at a time. I was taken to my room (almost all rooms were private) when I was stable and gently moved to the bed. In the wee hours of the morning I started throwing up from the morphine and it did take a while to get a doc to change orders for different pain meds. Once that was done, things got much better. All staff were kind and compassionate. The halls have lots of signs asking everyone to be quiet because they were in a healing zone. Food wasn't too bad and there were many healthy choices. I realize that I was very lucky to be in such a good hospital.

Caryn

dogeyed

JOY & EX BRONX, yup, I was lucky on the nausea thing, the previous spring when they put my chemo port in, the anesthesia wierded me out big-time when I came to, living nightmares, so when the head of anesth came around for my boob surgery, I told him then and there that whatever they gave me last time goofed me up, "I want to feel happy when I wake up," and he said he'd tweak whatever they give me last time.  Well, when I woke up, I was indeed a happy camper, stayed happy until, of course, the regular pain meds wore off that my nurse had been asking me about.  I was supposed to get this neat camisole with pockets when I checked out, along with nurse instructs on bandages, but since I checked out early, I didn't get that little pocket thing, and my cancer clinic nurse had to give me advice on bandages.  I could have bought a camisole, but just one week and the drains were out, and I was in no mood during that week to go to the Walmart, that's fo sho!  Oh, and the nurse navigator for mastectomy patients was on vacation (of course) when I came thru there, she called the following week and appreciated my whole story, was sad stuff had gone so wrong for me.  Hospital food was great, I ate dinner like I was starving.  GG

Karmil710

All excellent suggestions ladies.  I wish I saw this site before my BMX!

After my BMX I found that my post surgical pain was mostly muscular.  I took Valium with very good relief. 

Also, once I was home I had difficulty sleeping in bed as well as difficulty getting in/out of bed by myself.  I would recommend investing in a comfy recliner, if you don't have one already.

I hope this helps,

Karen