December 2011 Surgeries - want to wait together?

Well, looks like more surgery in my future.  MO recommends I have ovaries/fallopian tubes removed.  Where does it end?

Going to try to forget about it for the weekend.

Have a great Friday!

Glad to hear most are doing ok, Spumky- sorry about more surgery- not fun.  Cookie good for you!  congrats on the weight loss.  Bogie, I am glad you husband got a job again - that is not easy to do.  To all, much love and small SEs.

Cookie-woohoo on the weight loss.

Spunky- I had that surgery and it was pretty easy. Just the surgical menopause stinks.

Gold lining-good you saw the LE specialist and have a plan. I had the belly and leg swelling as well as arms and chest and my therapist made me stop sleeping in the recliner. She said to get horizontal. Not sure if you are in a recliner still?

I couldn't bear the recliner. I have been in the bed since less than a week of coming home. My swelling is gone from the chest in the morning, but picks up once I am up and out. I don't really have a gauge for the other swelling, but I can see it in my bra. The delayed flap swells; the immediate flap does not. My cleavage moves literally an inch to the left in my bra by the end of the day.

Hey Cookie, I have asthma too. It has been SO much better since I started running. I use the blue inhaler before a run (two shots) as a preventive and honestly, I almost never have to use any inhalers otherwise any more. 

Goldlining- I am usually alone in the house, so it didn't matter where I slept, and not going up and down the steps saves my knees.  and because I had a BMx I couldn't , litterallly couldnt get in or out of the hospital bed without help, much less a regular bed.  You cant use either arm to pull or push - try getting off a couch without using your arms.  just cross them over your chest and try it- it aint easy.  So basically I bought a sleep chair.  I am so gald I did.  When I have my knees done, I will be able to use it then too. so it paid off for me bigtime.

Back from MO today and it will be Tamoxifen for me.   Waiting until after next surgery (Lipo to even out breast) to start, so maybe mid-March?  Looking forward to next steps.

Hello ladies!  I have dropped by, but never posted on this page before.  I had a lumpectomy in November and finished 4 treatments of taxotere/cytoxan almost 3 weeks ago.  This past weekend, I started feeling some sensitivity around my lumpectomy incision (which was previously numb).  At my 3-month follow-up appointment, my breast surgeon said she could feel scar tissue, but that everything felt fine.  Has anyone else suddenly started to "feel" in that area again?  I'm hoping it's just "waking up" from a 3-month nap.  My incision is along the outer breast (my tumor was at 9:00).  Naturally, anything different has me completely freaked out.  Oh, and my BS just went on maternity leave, so I can't ask her if it's the same thing she felt 2 weeks ago.

Bogie - fat from ab is to be used to add volume to the breast mound.  Guess my bak muscle just didn't do it! Spunky - sorry to hear of your next surgery.  My Onc suggest supression of the ovaries to avoid another surgery.

Plan to hit the gym this week for swimming - one exercise I enjoy and have been cleared to do.

Hi Cookie - I think I have the same thing. I have no fear of it being mets, and I feel awful for what you are feeling because I do go off on ruminating jags for a whole slew of things. The upper back/shoulders for me is the primary site for where my stress goes. I had also twisted a vertebra between the shoulder blades in a ballet class in the 80s, and didn't have chiropractic adjustment of it for five years, so it is a lingering weakness. The pain was blissfully g-o-n-e after I woke up from the DIEP surgery (11 hours of paralytic drugs are a wonder) and for several weeks after, but has come back since I resumed my full load of keyboard work and stress of responsibilities. My pain sometimes feels like it is burning, and is unresponsive to robaxacet. Heat feels nice but does nothing for it. Massage likewise. Massage therapist says it feels tight, but the massage does not provide lasting relaxation. I have the upper back worked on when I see the physio (physical therapist for you Americans) when she stretches out my hip joints and shoulders. She stretches out the small muscles as I turn to each side. I was told I might find more relief from cool packs rather than heat but I don't like being cold so I don't. I sometimes put the cold blue goo on it though. I am a side and front sleeper so I just use a flattish pillow so as not to deviate the neck too much. (I remember years ago I bought an "ergo" pillow and it was the most painful experience I have ever had from a pillow.) Have you had any physiotherapy? 

Cookie - Everything is so interconnected in the upper back shoulder/arm area.  I've had problems with my shoulder neck my whole life, after being in a whiplash accident, radiologist asked me when I was hurt in my 2nd cervical..had arthritis.  I figured my big brother dropped me on my head when I was younger and I forgot (except for the excrutiataing stiff neck I had a 3 years of age).  Didn't really bother me except muscles tightning up my whole life.  After I added the whiplash, and presumably more arthritis, it took about 8 years more to develop degenerating spine, which spread to my shoulders resulting in full blown double shoulder tendonitis for nearly a year.....I can honestly say, that was WORSE than breast cancer in terms of pain and sleeping, though I'd never say worse to have.

So having no idea what you have, but experiencing this muscoskeletal pain, I will add this.  There is the acute phase when you are in extreme pain, then there is the chronic phase when you have good times and bad times and need to be preemptive.  When I'm in the acute phase, I just manage the pain by taking Celebrex and try to let it get better.  Massage of the neck gave me much relief.  When I was feeling better, paying UBER attention to my ergonomics at my desk prevented it's recurrence or atleast getting worse..  The PT can help with that.  What I did wrong when I first felt the shoulder pain coming on, I did not get on to Celebrex or get PT.  I think I could have prevented the really bad phase I went through.

I"m not a pill taker.  I always forgoe rather than partake (cancer cured that).  Anyway, I view Celebrex as a wonder drug. There can be serious SE's, though I haven't had any, but they literally cured my neck shoulder thing.  There are also many journal articles of Celebrex slowing tumor growth!  It is an anti-inflammatory and as such changes the terrane for the cancer tumor to react to.

 Some of this may be helpful, maybe not.  Just my 2 cents. 

Spunky: I am 45 and had an Oophorectomy on 11/03/11. I am Stage IV so Lupron wasn't really discussed. It also probably wasn't discussed since I don't have, nor want to have, children. I think that is the main deciding point. With Lupron, I believe once you stop, you can possibly still have children....with an Ooph...not so much.

Starting Singulair and Arimidex today. Yikes.. At the same time. Waiting a month to have my expanders replaced and scar tissue removed. I'm actually getting used to having surgery. The Capsular contracture is getting very tight on my chest so hoping I get some relief soon.



Blessings, the beach sound wonderful! I prompted me to start looking at resorts to take a much needed vaca when all this is over, hopefully end of the summer.



Happy weekend Dec Sistas!!