Post bilateral mastectomy

Hello all. I am almost 2 weeks post surgery and I wanted to share my experience. Before my surgery I was a nervous wreck. I kept going back and forth in my mind on whether or not to do a lumpectomy or mastectomy. My surgical oncologist felt I had enough tissue to do a lumpectomy. My medical oncologist felt though even though my brca gene test came back negative, that I had more reasons to do mastectomy. Very overwhelming when you are getting two adversary opinions. I had multifocal invasive ductal carcinoma er positive pr positive her2 negative. Because I had 3 tumors very estrogen positive, because I am 39, because I have a strong family history of cancer including breast cancer, and because I had extremely dense breast tissue the medical oncologist felt I should do the double mastectomy and give myself a higher survival outcome. I really struggled with this. Do a lumpectomy now and go through radiation and chemo with possible recurrence, or do a very permanent mastectomy. I finally made the decision to do the mastectomy. I almost ran out of the hospital the day of my surgery. It is crazy to know that you are the one making a decision to remove both your breasts. I just wanted to share my post surgery experiences with you and maybe help someone else who is scared or unsure. Mine happened to be the best desicion for me. My mammo came back normal, my ultrasound only showed two tumors, my MRI showed 3 tumors and not until they did my surgery did the surgeon find more cancer under the breast in the skin tissue. She said if she had not done the mastectomy they wouldn't have found it. Talk about reassurance. My cancer was is my left breast and I did the prophylactic mastectomy on the right side because I had upward of about 9 cysts in that breast and knew screening would always be an issue. I have to say, although I am not happy to have lost my breasts to cancer, It is really not as bad as I had imagined. In 2 days it will be two weeks since my surgery and I am doing very well. It is not an easy recovery and I do have a ways to go, but I am more uncomfortable than in excruciating pain. I did have to rely on help to do simple things like bathe and have someone fix my meals etc., but I am getting stronger everyday and want to tell you if you have to go through this, you can totally do it! I have only had two break downs since, and it might even be from coming off the anesthesia and pain meds. By the way coming off the anesthesia I could not pee the next day and couldn't poop for a week. Start taking something for constipation before surgery if you can and after. It will help. I am taking it slow but feel so much better. I did have expanders put in at the time of surgery and am still draining. That is a pain but still manageable. Also I was very scared about the injection of the blue dye into the lymphnode before surgery. They gave me a xanex because I was so anxious so when it came time to go to the nuclear medical dept. It really wasn't that bad. Ask them if you can have something for your nerves before surgery if you feel you need it. I am having a slight complication now. After surgery when I was already home I noticed a blue spot on my breast where blue dye was leaking. A few days later that area turned black. My doctors feel it is cell necrosis and will need to do a slight revision of the surgery to remove the dead tissue. I think maybe because they needed to take extra tissue from underneath my breast during surgery that there is a lack of blood supply to that area that caused the necrosis. Gross, but again not the end of the world. What would be the end of the world is if I hadn't taken care of myself and the cancer had spread. I consider myself very lucky. I know this journey is never truly over but I am in good spirits and wanted to share that it is possible to come out of this happy and feeling whole. God bless all of you beautiful woman on this journey. This website and your stories have been so helpful to me throughout this time. For the newbies, just dont over do it trying to analyze every little detail. Information is helpful, but we all go through our own journey and need to take it day by day. Love and light to you!