May 2016 Surgeries

HI, I'm new to the thread, having another lumpectomy tomorrow. First lumpectomy was  8 months ago, I had 10 rounds rads, then put on hormone receptors. He hasn't deicide on radiations again yet, which I had it thru a Savi  the first time. I had mucous cancer a rare type.

Welcome, nurse88. Sorry you're going through this again, but best wishes for your procedure tomorrow.

Raven and GreyKat - maybe it's the phase of the moon or something, but I also had a major meltdown last night - in front of my DH, which is the first time I've done that since my dx. I just had a bad day yesterday - the antibiotics were giving me diarrhea so I called the PS office and spoke to the nurse, who said she would have someone call in a prescription for something else. After several hours, the pharmacy still had not heard from them, so I called back, this time getting the on- call, after hours resident, who informed me that the antibiotic I was on, Clindamycin, was only given to patients who were allergic to penicillin (which I'm not!) and that diarrhea can be a very serious side effect on this medication and that if it got worse, I needed to go to the OR. When I finally got the new prescription, this time for the same stuff they had me on for my last MX, the pharmacist told me that diarrhea from Clindamycin may persist for several weeks or months after stopping it - ugh.

On top of this, when I called and talked to the nurse earlier in the day, she reminded me of my postop appointment on Fri. I said yes, that I was hoping to have the drains removed, and her reply was "We don't take them both out the same day, we will only pull one"! I told her that both of my drains were pulled the same day last time (same PS, just different nurse!). She said she would have to get permission from my PS to do pull them both. BTW, they are both under20 cc's over a 24 hour period now, and I'm determined not to leave her office Fri. until both are removed!

The nurse also asked if I had removed the dressing over the drains and I told her that I had not - my written postop directions said in capital letters DO NOT REMOVE THE DRESSING OVER THE DRAINS! They would remove them during the first postop. So the nurse told me on the phone that I should remove the dressing every day, and wash the incision and drain sites with soap and water every day, then put a new dressing on. I had not done this for my first MX and since I could not easily do this myself, my DH had to do this. He got flustered, dropped the clean dressing on the floor, and I just started crying. I balled my eyes out for a good half hour.

Anyway, that's my rant. I feel slightly better today, but I'm still ticked about the antibiotics and the not pulling the drain thing.

Nurse88 - welcome to our club. We are here to support you in whatever way we can.

Valstim, jensgotthis and papillon - I hope you are resting well after surgery and on your way to an easy recovery.

I must be feeling extra chatty tonight because today ended up being a high energy, high mobility day, and I actually got to walk a mile outside. So forgive the mini microbio lecture y'all. I just get excited about weird stuff.

Like I can watch daily updates between the hospital bill and my insurance company processing claims - they both do it online in systems I can watch. So I can practically see them negotiating over costs. I already have the costs for my surgery and complications and such in bc those billing departments just feed that paper through, you can tell. They've been dickering about the MRI the breast surgeon ordered two months ago and they *finally* settled for less than 1/10 the cost the hospital was billing. They are STILL dickering over the cost of the breast ultrasound ordered 4 months ago that insurance denied for a couple rounds. I am absurdly enjoying watching this process because for a lot of years we paid our insurance premiums and then had nothing left over so couldn't afford to actually go see a doctor for anything at all so we had no medical care in practicality. So now it's nice to feel like we're finally getting something back out of all those years we paid to keep our insurance but scrimped and scratched everywhere else and couldn't ever afford a clinic visit copay.

Weird, I know. Grateful we have insurance. Kinda weirdly fun to watch the two Mega Medical Behemoths go at it: Hospital vs Insurance!

And of course I'm watching online because initially I was "omg how much is this going to cost us?" panic at first, so I couldn't possibly wait for the monthly billing statements when I could check faster online. Now I've gotten hooked!

Raven, Mom of 6 littles, GreyKat - yup it was time for a melt down, sometimes you have to let it out.

Today I got the best news ever - my oncotype came in a week early and they called me it is only 11! I will not need chemo. I was so happy. I guess I figured since I had 4 tumors over 4 cm and in both breasts, I would just have a high score. That means my reconstruction can be done sooner.

I also went to the PS today and got my first fill - 60cc each. It really threw me for a loop. I had no idea it would hurt so bad. I even started crying. The left didn't hurt at all, more like pressure. The right, my radiated side had a bad nerve pain as the needle went in then zowie it hurt. They gave me ibuprofen and Tylenol so that made it much better. I will definitely take some BEFORE I go next week. I may only need 5 fills to reach the maximum that my radiated side can take - so happy and sore. Been on the couch for hours

Yes you can have reconstruction with past radiation, I had full right side radiation in 2007, from the middle of my chest to almost my back. My PS said that diep is the best choice for success on a radiated breast so that is what we are going for. Of course each person is different and I seem to be so fortunate in that my radiated side while looking hideous is not infected.

hi, am writing from the hospital. All went well, 4 hour of surgery and 2 in recovery. Tried to walk a few hours later but it was too soon and I nearly passed out. The night was ok. Nausea a bigger problem than pain. They gave me drugs for it but coke was the best! The nurse agreed.

I was terrified of being put o sleep but it was ok - just got very sleepy and drifted off. Wasn't nearly as scarey as I feared

Using my arms very difficult. Physio said it will be two months before I can resume normal activities. Arms must be used below head height before then. That's because of the immediate implants.

Getting out of bed v hard so I am trying to sit in chair a lot, though I may go back to bed for another sleep - anaesthetic makes for dizzy tiredness.

Hope everyone else is ok xxx

Well, I guess it's some comfort knowing that I'm not the only one who's having meltdowns. My poor teenage boys are scared to death of me at the moment – which, come to think of it, probably isn't such a bad problem to have when it comes right down to it! LOL!

Today's new "joy" is agonizing stabbing pains at the corner of my incision site underneath the right breast. It's looking really red and angry and the pain is seriously bringing me to my knees when it hits, which is often and out of the blue and not seemingly related to movement – it just happened a second ago while I'm sitting in my La-Z-Boy typing away. Temp went up a teensy bit to 101 last night, so maybe it's just the infection trying to rear its ugly head again, or maybe it's an entirely new infection, but I'm beating it back with the abx and copious amounts of Extra Strength Tylenol. F/up with the PS is tomorrow – I'm sitting here debating whether I should try to get in today or just wait until tomorrow. Either way, I'm anxious for him to get a good look at things and tell me what's really going on.

Granda3x, don't you love getting conflicting advice from WITHIN THE SAME OFFICE?? I swear sometimes the medical community just seems to be one big ball of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

Mom4four – great news on the no chemo! I'm happy for you. Sorry you had such pain on your fill – I had my first fills last week and they were pain free, thank God. Hopefully the next time it won't be so bad for you!

Papillon1 – wow, look at you! Updating from the hospital! Good to hear from you but rest, rest, rest!

Hi ladies. The operation was this morning at 8am. It lasted 1.5 hour and according to the surgeon it went smoothly. They forgot to give me the one o'clock dosage of morphine, and gave me a paracetamol instead (the Dutch and their paracetamol....they give it for everything). I'm experiencing more discomfort than pain btw. It's now 4pm and I'm starving.

Yesterday I wasn't having a pity party (that will come later, of course), I was taking a video of my breasts! (what the h*ll...yeah, I know)

Greermomma....has anything changed that might have initiated this? Were your drains removed recently? I wouldn't say anything we experience at this point is "normal". I would definitely be in touch with either your BS or PS.

MoreShoes, glad to hear from you! (Videos! I took pics but no live action. Heh.)

Wheeled into surgery at 7:30, out of recovery by 10:30. I hurt, and it's hard not to use my arms. But I'm up in a chair now. They have my chest tightly bound with an ace bandage, and that hurts more than anything right now. But I'm doing ok. Will go home tomorrow.

Hopefully will have final pathology by Friday.

I'm hanging in there. My husband just went down to the cafeteria to get me a coffee and a cookie. That makes everything better. :-

I'm all set for my BMX tomorrow. Starting to get pretty nervous about it. My sister is arriving in about an hour so that will help take my mind off of things.

Sending lots of healing wishes to everyone else!

MoreShoes, I was told I could stay another day if I wasn't ready. I'm feeling way better now than 5 hours ago. I do want to get home to my space, but I worry about the kids getting to excited to see me and me wanting to mother. Don't want to hurt myself.

Will they let you stay another day if you need it

Good luck to you Huskerfan! You can do this.

I hope you all get to stay another day if you need to. I had a "one night then out" standard I ran up against and the morning after surgery (6 hrs surgery, 5+ hrs in recovery room with problems, didn't get to regular room until 10:30pm and all pain meds had worn off) when my BS's right hand dr and her resident showed up to check up on things and such, I was in so much pain and so scared of being sent home like that I started crying and told her I was scared to go home because stuff had gone wrong and etc.. She was open-mouthed speechless for a few seconds before telling me they wouldn't send me home like that (and the resident was quick to scribble out more scripts for drugs I didn't understand I was going to get).

And that's how I ended up with a second much-needed night in the hospital to stabilize before going home on day 3. I wish you ALL an easier time with it, but those young doctors do love The Standard Plan of Treatment.

My BS saw me this morning and said that everything went fine, he did his best for a nice scar and I definitely stay one more night. So I didn't have to twist anyone's arm.

It's a good thing I stay. Quite suddenly the right side hurt so much I wasin tears. They pomped me up with morfine and paracetamol. Imagine being at home, with pain,uncertain and scared.