Question about other surgery needed?

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Castlequeen
Castlequeen Member Posts: 1
edited November 2015 in Surgery - Before, During, and After

I have to have surgery in my left hand not related to the breast cancer. I had a lumpectomy with lymph node removal back on November 2011. It is now November 2015 and I have to have surgery on my hand to remove bone fragments.

I was in the surgery area, already on an IV drip when the doctor told me he would not do the surgery until he found out if there was a risk of lymphadema after wards. It seemed strange when I was already prepped for surgery, sat in the surgery center waiting to go into surgery for nearly 4 hours and then he comes and talks to me about the possibility of getting lymphadema.

Does anyone know about anything like this. Opinions or information would be appreciated it anyone else has gone through this and if they had surgery done to another part of their arm after having a lumpectomy...

Thanks in advance for reading...

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  • ChiSandy
    ChiSandy Member Posts: 12,133
    edited November 2015

    In which breast was your lumpectomy? If the left, your surgeon is being properly cautious. Our surgeons generally advise us to avoid needle sticks, blood draws, tourniquets, IVs, even blood pressure cuffs in the same side arm as our operated breast! If it’s the opposite side, there’s no problem. If you had the IV in the arm on the same side as your lumpectomy the train may have already left the station, so to speak. A lot will depend on how many nodes you had removed--sentinel or axillary dissection? If the latter, your LE risk also rises. But leaving the bone fragments in there might also be posing a risk. Maybe your surgeon is carefully weighing one risk against the other. There may be no one definitive answer.

    Didn’t your hand surgeon know beforehand about your lumpectomy, and that LE risk doesn’t lessen over time? (It can develop at any time after surgery). If he knew and went ahead with invasive surgical prep before realizing LE risk, that might not have been his wisest course of action and he is on the right track in trying to “cut his losses”....which might already be more like locking the barn door after the horse has escaped.

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