Chemo while recovering from flap surgery?

regatta21 · June 2015

The story: The breast surgeon said I would not need chemo because my tumor was less than 2 cm and stage one. I had a double Mastectomy for IBC -- and a month later, I had a flap surgery. I did not know I was supposed to meet with the oncologist before surgeries as I knew I would already need tamoxifen. Well, no one told me that they were going to run the oncotype test on me. I never heard about this even existed until my meeting with the oncologist three weeks after the flap surgery. Well it's turns out I needed chemo as I had a high oncotype test score TAC (recommended T first before AC). And I had to recover from the flap surgery while going through chemo. I find out that this slows down healing by about six months. Had I have known that I would be a candidate for chemo potentially going in to any of the surgeries, especially the flap surgery, I would've not had the flap surgery and just did implants. Anyone else recover from a flap surgery while doing chemo? The breast surgeon should not have said that to me. It was not her place or her job. This made cancer harder than it had to be.

regatta21 · June 2015

One more thing. The plastic surgeon asked if I would be needing chemo, and I said no. I just thought he was asking. He never said it was because it would slow down healing. I wish PS would've asked that question then gave me the reason why. Or I would've thought to ask it. That would've changed how I did things.It should be mandatory for the patient to need to see an oncologist before any surgery takes place in hindsight. There are too many unknowns with cancer as I am finding out. And if you don't know the questions to ask, then you don't get the answers it seems. I'm mentioning this because if anyone has not seen an oncologist before going into any BC surgery, I would recommend it 100%.

jenjenl · June 2015

Hey Regatta - I really think you'll be ok. You are 3 weeks post op and those are the most critical of weeks. When are you starting chemo? How far out from the DIEP surgery? The only thing chemo might hinder is your ability to do revisions, you'll have to wait until your done with chemo and that's OK Some woman have radiation after the DIEP which brings challenges too. All of us experience these annoying bumps in the road, where things are moving along and then BAM some crap is thrown your way. You will adjust and move past this bump too!

All will be well. Thinking of you - Jen

debiann · June 2015

My BS knew I was going to need chemo because I was HER 2+, but she did the lx before sending me to the MO. When I saw him he was disappointed that I had already had surgery because he would have preferred the new neo-adjunctive TCPH protocol that included perjeta. Because I already had surgery, I had to do adjunctive TCH with herceptin only and I missed out on perjeta. yes, a visit to the MO should occur before the BS.

aff · June 2015

Hi Regatta - I did not have chemo after DIEP but my last chemo was just 4 weeks before surgery. I did have radiation after surgery and I did not have any complications or problems healing. Wish you the best.

cider8 · June 2015

I had chemo after surgery. I also met with the MO before surgery because I asked to, not because I was sent. I was not expected to have chemo. The small tumor that was found was mucinous, which doesn't respond well to chemo. But during surgery, my sential lymph node was positive and then they found a second tumor, which was a regular invasive ductal carcinoma. This was not found on screenings due to dense breast tissue. I took four weeks to recover from BMX w/DIEP before starting chemo. I had no healing issues. I waited three months after chemo to have DIEP Stage 2

Meow13 · June 2015

what was your your oncodx score? Mine was 34.

Chemo while recovering from flap surgery?

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