BRCA 1 positive, new to site (ovarian cancer positive)

jbalink

Hello Everyone,

I'm new to this site, and I am here because I'm trying to connect with others who have had preventative mastectomies. I was just diagnosed in July with ovarian cancer, and because of being under 50 and some of the women in my family having breast cancer, I was genetic tested and came back BRCA 1 positive. I have gone through 15 straight weeks of chemo, with 3 weeks to go and I want to have my breasts removed as soon as my blood counts are normal and the surgery can be done safely.

I am wondering how long the surgery takes? How long are you typically in the hospital? Is the reconstruction done at the same time? How long does it take to heal? Go back to work? Thank you for any input, I'm trying to mentally prepare for this.

Julie

Moderators

Hi jbalink, and welcome to Breastcancer.org!

Until other members come along to post with their personal experiences and support, we recommend you to take a look at these articles from our main site:

• Prophylactic Mastectomy
• What to Do if Your Genetic Test Results Are Positive
• Prophylactic Surgery Reduces Risk for Women With Abnormal Breast Cancer Genes

We hope this helps!

The Mods

JJ62

Hi jblink

This forum might help:

All Topics → Forum: Surgery - Before, During, and After → Topic: Mastectomy is an outpatient procedure???

I am in relatively good shape and was 50 when I had my second mastectomy and hysterectomy as day surgery. 3 weeks post surgery I was "gently" cross country skiing, and made great memories with my family. I have not had recon..

Best wishes,

Jody

anneoftheforest

Hello, I hope your treatment is going well. I'm 38 and BRCA2+ and I had a BMX due to DCIS so I didn't have chemo. I would say the first two weeks I needed help the most because of the drains and because of limited range of motion in my arms. Every day I got a little stronger. I only had the drains for a week and I started driving after two weeks. I think around a month I was more back to normal. I had expanders put in during surgery and I started having fills right away so that made me sore as well.

Have you decided what type of reconstruction you want? They can do reconstruction at the same time. I was able to have my expanders filled partially when they were placed. My surgery with both the breast surgeon and plastic surgeon took about four hours. I spent two nights in the hospital. I have heard of some people only spending a night but I was glad to be there for two just to control the pain. Once I got home I was off the strong pain killers within a few days ... everyone is different though.

This forum is a great place to get support. You can also check out the FORCE forum as well that deals with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer due to BRCA and other mutations ,... www.facingourrisk.org.

worryocd

Hi! I am also braca1 positive and I have had a total hysterectomy(a year and a half ago) and a prophylactic BMX to expanders this passed summer. My PS told me that I cannot care for anyone but myself for the first two weeks. He was right! I did nothing but rest, sleep and take short walks in my yard. My husband helped me with my drains the first couple of days. He insisted, but I was able to drain them myself. My husband and my mother-in-law made food for me and my kids. I spent one-night in the hospital. Over-all recovery for BMX -expander recovery for me was 4-6 weeks. I initially wanted BMX direct to implant but the PS I wanted said I will get better results if I go the expander route. The breast surgeon that I really liked, worked with my PS and were affilliated at the same hospital. The entire procedure was four hours. The first two hours, the breast surgeon performs the mastectomy . The next two hours the ps performs the first stage of the reconstruction process(placement of the expanders). I hope your treatment is going well and I am happy to read that your almost done! FORCE is also a great reasource. I don't know what I would of done without this site and ForCE.