July 2014 Surgery Sisters

belleb-  With you in spirit tomorrow!  As someone on the board said, now your main job is just to show up on time.  It will go great tomorrow and, honestly, it was not near as difficult as I thought it was going to be.  I think sometimes we imagine the worst.  For my PBMX, I had a 8:00 am surgery time and that was great.  I arrived and by early afternoon I was in recovery.  They offered me some beef broth about 5 pm and that felt so good on my throat.  The broth and ice chips were my favorites that afternoon.  

Give us an update when you feel up to but focus on just healing and recovering!

Ally

Thanks, guys!!

Kellog

Wishing you the best tomorrow.  Will be thinking of you tomorrow.

Hi, all -

It's taken me a while to post since surgery on 7/16, but I am doing well.  I had two drains removed...the two that are left are driving me crazy!  They said to "strip" them to move things along so they don't get clogged, but mine seem to still be getting clogged up at the top.  The nurse who took out the two other drains on Tuesday said it may be that I don't have enough fluid in there to push things along.  I wish I could get these last two out earlier than next Thursday!  I am amazed at how tight the muscles are under my arms and across my chest.  I was given the go ahead to some stretching exercises so I am doing those and they seem to be helping.  I was told not to do the other exercises until the drains come out.  From you ladies who are ahead of me - how long did it take you for things to loosen up and for your range of motion t get back to normal?  

As for my pathology, they did find four small IDC tumors along with the DCIS, but the good news is that they said the margins were widely clear at 5mm and the sentinel nodes they removed were clear.  Some other lymph nodes were mixed in with some of the tissue, too and all those were also clear, so I am happy about all that.  I am seeing an oncologist on Thursday to see if they want me to do anything else.  The surgeon said they might suggest Tamoxifen.  The tumors were ER+ PR+ and Her2-.   

It was nice to read through and catch up on how everyone is doing!

Yes, 3 weeks is normal for a drain to stay in, I think 3-4 weeks is about the average and on occasion there's a stubborn one that needs 6-8 weeks.  

Hope you're doing well! 

Yay belleb! Glad you made it home. What time was your surgery? Mines not until 4:45 PM. I'm trying to guess what time the next day I may get to leave. It's a 2 hr drive to my sister's plus we have to go by my house to pick up all my stuff.

Wonder why some people get 4 drains and some only get two? Fingers crossed I end up w/ two.

Blergh! My PS is using Alloderm, so I guess I will end up w/ 4.

I had my BMX yesterday.  I'm still in the hospital.  My surgery was late, I didn't get to my room until 8pm last night.  I am still having trouble with lightheadedness and dizziness when I get up. The plan is to go home tomorrow. Other then that I am doing good. 

Hi all, I am new to this forum (just found it yesterday). I had a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction earlier this week and was feeling down yesterday so I was looking for words of advice and came upon this site. I am impatient to feel normal again and am also bothered that I am not my usual cheerful self.  It was nice coming to this board and finding out that the range of emotions I am having are perfectly normal and not feeling like the independent, strong woman after surgery is okay. So, I wanted to thank you all for sharing your experiences which have helped me.

I will keep reading your words and look forward to connecting with my fellow BC sisters!

It's been 48 hours since surgery and I'm still only having discomfort from the drain sites - they are sore when I walk or otherwise move, but if I'm just sitting or laying down, I'm pretty good. I did not have reconstruction, so that might be why I only have 2 drains too. They aren't putting out as much as I thought they would, so hopefully they will come out on time! Last night we drained them at 9:00 and I didn't wake up until almost 8:30 and they each only had 15ccs in them. Every time my husband "strips the drains" I'm scared they're going to tear! lol I still have the compression Ace bandage on, wondering when I will take that off. Surgeon said anytime I feel like it - maybe the drain sites will be more comfortable without? I'll see how today goes.

jill8 and barremom64 - I am feeling much like you two...can't wait to get back to normal!  My surgery was 7/16.  I had 4 drains and will get the last two out on 7/31 and I can't wait!  Still no jeans for me - I've been lounging in pj bottoms the whole time.  Have either of you started any arm exercises yet?  I couldn't start until after a week and even now can only do two until I see the doctor on Thursday.  I'm just so anxious to get my arms moving more!

belleb - I agree - the drains have been the worst, too and I did not expect to feel nothing where my breasts were removed.  I also did not do reconstruction and was surprised to have a somewhat raised area in the center near my sternum.  Am hoping that will smooth out some as the healing continues.  

kimag - I was wondering, since you were two weeks ahead of me on surgery, how is your range of motion with your arms?  Has the tightness loosened up a lot?  

kellogg2006 - hope you are doing well! 

straitlover - you're almost there - hang in there!  I am also in NC - not far from Charlotte. 

Hi: I posted on this forum once before (lumpectomy on July 9) and I found myself reading all the posts this morning, and starting to wonder about some things. I hope someone might be able to answer my questions. The pathology report came back and the tumor was 1.5cm, triple negative, G.3, sentinel node was negative but a small area of lymphovascular invasion in a blood vessel. My understanding is that this is a form of a "micrometastases"? There has never been any recommendation for a mastectomy, even now. My chemo will start on September 3 and includes the one that can damage the heart (Adriamycin) but I had a MUGA test to assess whether my heart was healthy enough to handle that chemo and it came back ok.

When I read over these posts, I see so many women had the mx and am wondering why? The lumpectomy was so strongly recommended by the surgeon and the oncologist and yet it is triple negative, G 3, so I wonder why they didn't suggest the mx? It's left me feeling uneasy, especially with the "invasion". Also, I am 2 1/2 weeks post-surgery, and yesterday, I started to get sharp pains in the breast where the lump was taken out. It felt like someone was stabbing me with a needle or a thorn, yet I know there is no infection. So, of course, I started to imagine the cancer is growing really quickly and causing those sensations, ones I've never had before, ever.Then I started to wonder how quickly the cancer can grow/reproduce since it is grade 3 and the oncologist said that type can develop really quickly (within a year, between mammograms)

I wanted to take the month of August to get as healthy as I can before starting the chemo, as the oncologist said it wouldn't be a problem to start it 8 weeks post-surgery, instead of 4. Now, I'm just having a lot of questions, anxiety and self-doubt. I guess I'll call the BS on Monday to ask about the pain. If anyone has any comments or answers to my questions, I would love to hear from you. Thank you.

pjc and belleb,  

If I can share a few things, they might help you sort things out.  I had to give myself a real crash course in the 2-3 months after my DX.  Then I've been having to educate all different people over and over since then, so that they can follow what I'm talking about.  For example, my boss has asked probably 3 or 4 times why, if they took "everything out," I still had to have chemo and rads.  

Obviously I am NOT a physician, so this is not medical advice and of course everything needs to be talked through with your medical team.  

pjc, if you're triple negative and Grade 3, plus had lympho invasion, your greatest risk is metastasis, e.g. the growth of cancer cells that may have traveled outside the local/regional area.  A MX won't help you with that.  It would be closing the barn door after the horse is gone.  

Any consideration of a MX would focus on reducing your risks of getting a new primary tumor - in my case, it was the positive BRCA2 result.  I was given a 12% chance of getting a brand-new cancer within 5 years, and at least a 50% chance lifetime.  Other factors might be if you have dense breasts where the tumors might be hard to detect, or if you just don't want to keep worrying about this every time you go for a mammogram.  

At 2.5 weeks, you're right on schedule for zap and zing pains where your cut nerves are trying to regenerate.  Tell your doc, but it shouldn't be anything to worry about.  What was weird for me was every time I drank something hot or cold, I would feel that temperature change spreading all throughout my chest.  

Just be happy your tumor is small and it's out!  Mine was that size and the medical team was shocked that the little monster was able to contaminate 11 lymph nodes.  They still don't know why.  He was just super aggressive.  Also possible that he was located near a vessel - which means cells could have gone distant even without going through the lymph nodes.  I fought like hell against the idea of chemo before that path report came back, but once it did, I had gone straight from misdemeanor to felony and it was going to be maximum chemo and rads for me.  

belleb it sounds like you know this, but it is a myth that MX means you won't have to have radiation.  I found out that about 1 in 3 MX patients need radiation after all.  Typically this is due to lymph node involvement, particularly 4 or more, but some docs want to irradiate even with 1 positive node.  Other times there was skin or chest wall involvement where there was no way to get clear margins.  

The radiation is for the local/regional risk management mostly, although for me they're irradiating the axillary nodes and the ones above and below the collarbone as well, and I think that's an extra precaution against any bad stuff growing in those nodes and getting ideas about traveling elsewhere.  

To both of you:  One thing that you can take comfort in about having those red-hot Grade 3 TN cells, is that they're just ripe to get really badly beaten up by the chemo.  The more active the cells, the more they eat it up.  That's why they tell you to avoid any antioxidant supplements during chemo.  

I always took reassurance in that factor (although I'm not TN).  I feel bad for women who have to have chemo due to big tumor or dirty lymph nodes, but have only Grade 1 or 2 cells, and they're going through all the chemo hell but their cells may just be thumbing their noses at it to some degree.  

AND, you won't have to take estrogen blocking medication for the rest of your days.  Must say I'm a little envious in that regard!  

PM me if you like.  Peace to you.  

Paloverde, yes I realize that mastectomy doesn't automatically mean you don't need radiation, but due to my stats and margins, I will not need it with a mast. I would have needed it with just the lumpectomy.

NP belleb, I didn't mean anything by it, you seem very well informed.  

I just remember it was a surprise for me, as well as some others who were on the Dec 2013 surgeries board with me.  Including some who chose MX specifically to avoid rads, then got a nasty surprise with lymph nodes and had to have rads after all  

And there was also a misconception among some that MX would keep you from needing chemo, when actually there is very little correlation, it's dependent on tumor biology and Oncotype.

I would have given anything to avoid chemo, but in hindsight I would have always had a worry in the back of my mind if I declined it.  Cells can spread through the bloodstream even if they don't take hold in the lymph nodes.  

And chemo sucked, but it's over.  The neuropathy in my fingertips has receded to a degree that if I had to live with it for the rest of my life, I could.  Which it's starting to look like I might, because I'm 2 months out, taking the vitamin B6 as prescribed, and thought it would have resolved by now ...