April 2019 Surgery Support Group

I'm scheduled for a bilateral mastectomy April 23. The emotional roller coaster is in full swing. I'm really concerned that the sentinel mapping isn't going to work on the radiated side. @rrshannon how did the mapping go for you. Also stressing that I'm never going to sleep again. I am SUCH a stomach sleeper!

I hope all that have had surgery have easy recoveries and all those still waiting can find some peace and sleep!

All the best to my surgery sisters having theirs tomorrow. I’m due in theatre 9am UK time. Had a call from radiology at 4.15 this afternoon while I was doing my final handover meeting at work. I was supposed to be there at 4pm for the radioactive thingy injection but hadn’t been told (and they close at 5pm). Needless to say I dropped everything and raced over there. Luckily the hospital is close, so just made it in time! So I’m all set. Not looking forward to it but I guess I’ll be glad when it is over. X

I'm getting ready for my surgery on April 24th so am just stopping in to say hi! I'll be having a lumpectomy and am just ready to get it over with and move on to the next steps. I'm still waiting on results from my genetic testing but decided to go ahead with this first surgery and deal with that later if needed. I'd need a lot more time to plan for a larger surgery anyway and this at least gets the known cancer out in the meantime.

Hi everyone! I had my bilateral mastectomy yesterday, and I am currently in the hospital. I'm surprised to see that my breasts aren't wrap and are in a front closing bra. I've been able see them, and it isn't scary looking. I had a nipple sparing surgery and expanders are inside. The expanders feel weird to the touch. They are very hard. I'm happy I chose to stay the night in the hospital. It's been helpful to stay on top of the pain, especially where I had the axillary node dissection. That is really painful. I feel a lot of pressure in the chest and upper back right behind my breasts.

My surgeon came out in the waiting room after surgery, and she told my family that the cancer is all out. In her opinion, my nodes looked good too. I'm so happy that the cancer is out. I haven't felt this happy in months!

I'm praying for everyone that is going into surgery this month and for everyone that is recovering from their surgery. You are all on my mind and in my heart.

Well, I’m back on the ward, and things seem to be ok I think. My skin definitely looks a bit blue from the dye, but not a complete smurf look (hope it doesn’t get more blue though!).

I think the surgery was longer than anticipated as I went in at 9am and woke up in recovery at 3ish (my surgeon had estimated 3.5 hours, but I make that 6 hours). I wonder why???

had my surgery April 1  had four drains . then had more surgery for a bleed on April 9th they did take one drain out at that time. the other ones came out on the 16th. It ws so nice to get a real shower. Sad part is I have to go for another surgery on April 29 to have right lymph nodes tested and removed. turned out that I had cancer in both left and right breast. IDC/ILC dcis and lcis so they now call it invasive mammary carcinoma. grade 2 and grade 1 Stage 1a. If node are clear on right side. fingers crossed. started anastrazole pill once a day .  also vitamin D 50,000 units once a week. Hope everyone in doing good and will be drain and pain free soon. Cancer Gone forever!!!

well I am home and resting from total right mastectomyno recon on the 19th. 2 sentinels were positive for micrometasis so a few more nodes were taken. Tumor is completely out. Surgery took about 3 hrs. Pain wise I’m okay, took no pain meds my night in the hospital even tho I was on morphine pump so I could have had some if I wanted. Took 2 Tylenol last night but otherwise haven’t taken anything. Most annoying part is the drains. Keeping arm movements to 90 degrees front and side. Drains pulling currently about 25 to 30 ml on drain 1 twice a day and about 10 to 20ml twice a day on drain 2. Stripping them daily, appetite is normal. Getting up and walking helps, I slept off and on night of surgery and I slept last night. Currently wrapped in ace bandage and have to keep it on for 3 days. Overall not as bad as I expected, just can’t wait to get ace off and drains out!!

Happy healing!!

Hello, I'm Kelly. I'll be getting unilateral mastectomy of left breast on Wednesday, April 24. I have chosen to forgo reconstruction, at least for the time being. I've been pretty positive since dx on 3/28/2019 but I'm starting to get a bit scared. Not so much of the pain I will experience, but more about waking up without a breast. Today I took pictures as someone on one of these threads suggested and I'm glad I did. If I want to, I can now look back to see what was. I keep touching my breast too. In a few days I will never see or feel it again. But yet, I feel like it betrayed me too. Such a mixture of confusing feelings. I thank everyone for sharing their stories so I don't feel so alone and pray for all of you too. 

Five days past lumpectomy and doing well. Full range of motion, almost no pain/discomfort. I do tire quickly, but that's not much to complain about.

This morning I did some of my daily abs/core exercises and also got out some 6.6lb. dumbbells. Seemed about right for doing some bicep curls and overhead presses. Later a friend is coming over and we'll go for a short walk.

As well as I'm doing (and believe me, I'm so very grateful!) it's hard to feel so helpless. My husband and I have a running joke of stories about feeling "trapped! with no means of escape!" These are things like getting on an amusement park ride that ended up unpleasant, and being at a party we couldn't leave, stuff like that. Breast cancer seems like the ultimate Trapped! experience.

hodgepodge The mapping went well for me. They only took 2 nodes that were easy to find and thankfully they were negative. Hope your surgery went well.

beep7bop Sorry to hear they found more BC on the other side. That has been one of my biggest fears even though I had chemo pre surgery. I hope your next surgery goes well.

April0315 Sorry you will need to go back for a mastectomy but glad they were able to find it now as opposed to later.

Motheroftwo… I hope your pain is now manageable. The worse pain for me has been where the drains are located.

TriMama it is hard to be taken care of for me as well but could definitely not do it alone. Now my 17yr old daughter is sick, to much stress from last week probably and now my mom and my husband have another patient to take care of. Prom is this weekend hoping she recovers soon and I can keep her germs away.

An update on me.

My bilateral mastectomy with immediate tissue expander placement was Monday, April 15th. I had the lymph node mapping (I had previously had 3 nodes removed from that side 15 years prior) in the morning and surgery in the afternoon. The surgeons said it was one of the driest surgeries they had done. There was not a lot of blood. The two nodes they removed were clear. They were very happy with how surgery went as I had radiation as well 15 years ago on the right side. They did have to take more skin than expected as my tumor was close to the skin. I had chosen to not do nipple sparing as I was having issues with my nipple but they would not have been able to save it anyway so I am glad I wasn't counting on that.

We had insisted that I stay overnight as the PS surgeon was saying I could go home same day and BS had originally said I would stay over night. I had my surgery at a surgery center which look about 4 hours and by the time I was fully out of recovery there was only me and one other patient for the night. She was walking laps around the room and looked like she hadn't even had surgery .

A couple hours post recovery I had to pee so they wheeled my gurney over to the restroom as they were going to transfer me to a bed any way. I remember how it felt pretty easy to get up with assistance and use the restroom, I then walked about 25 feet to my bed for the evening. I thought to myself this isn't bad I probably could have gone home.

They sat me up to eat the soup I had ordered and my daughter came back for a visit before she was going to take my mom back home for the night. After only a couple of bits I got light headed, I have low blood pressure normally, so I thought it was just due to my normal low blood pressure and surgery. I lowered my bed down to try and recover and sent my daughter out to the waiting room as to not upset her if it got worse and I were to pass out.

My mom and husband came in as the nurse wanted to go over some home care instructions before my mom left for the night. As they talked my right arm felt as it would not stop swelling and then my blood pressure dropped dramatically and my heart rate increased. The nurse started pushing IV fluids and called the PS. At that point my husband noticed my entire right chest was black and blue swelling all the way up to my collar bone. At that time the nurse told the PS she was going to call 911 to transfer me across the street. They sent photos to my doctor who meet us at the hospital.

When I arrived at the ER I was becoming unresponsive with a blood pressure my husband says was 30/20 and heart rate in the high 150s, they had to give me 3 units of blood to stabilize me for emergency surgery. As they wheeled me to the OR the surgeon explained what he was going to hope to do in surgery. The PS removed 1200 CCs of blood from my chest cavity and removed my right tissue expander and was thankfully able to find and fix the bleed. They took me to critical care until after recovery and I was in my new bed by about 1am.
The next morning I asked if I could get up to use the restroom, they brought in a bed side commode where I proceeded to once again pass out. The got me back in bed and stuck me on bedrest until they could get some more tests ran.

At first they thought I might have sepsis, but they soon determined my adrenals were not working and I was in adrenal stress. I stayed in critical care until Thursday evening when they finally took me to a regular room for one more night/day before letting me be discharged. During my stay I was pumped with so may IV's, steroids, and antibiotics they my weight was 17lbs heavier then when I went in for surgery. Did you know the beds have scales? I didn't. Thankfully I am now only 2 lbs higher than pre surgery as I was quite swollen.

Now that I am home I am still on steroids, taking two antibiotics and trying to regain energy. Yesterday I saw the PS nurse, as the PS was sick, and she was able to remove 2 of the four drains, one on each side. I do have a pink patch above my left side incisions that hasn't increased in size since Thursday that the PS is monitoring. Most my pain, besides the tightness in the chest, is from the drains so that was nice to have a little relief. I also saw my oncologist yesterday since they are in the same building. I had more blood work today and see the BS tomorrow with a follow up with my endocrinologist next week for the adrenal issues.

I did get a partial path report and the final results on the nodes are clear and they did get clean margins on the original right side tumor that shrunk 30% with chemo. My oncologist printer wasn't working and he just skimmed my report he didn't see the hormone receptors so he is going to have them ran again and he didn't see any results for the left breast. Should have a copy of the report tomorrow to read when I see my BS.

I have to say my family was very stressed and anxious and I am thankful that during the whole ordeal I was at peace. Hope everyone else is doing well and getting some rest.

rrshannon... what a horrible ordeal! Glad you have come thru it all ok, hope you continue to heal uneventfully (I'd say you had enough excitement already).

I'm feeling great which is making the looming surgery ahead all the more daunting. Tomorrow the tumor board reviews my case so I'll know the exact proposed plan of care tomorrow afternoon. I guess bilateral BC is not super common, especially with so many undetected IDC tumors. Had the mastectomy consult with PS yesterday which went well. He is a very kind and skilled surgeon so I know I'll have the best outcome possible. The biggest concern is possible tissue necrosis since the 2 surgeries are so close together. Apparently there's nothing I can do about that.