Unilateral mastectomy & reconstruction
Comments
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Momwriter, I totally understand where you are coming from. Fear can be can be debilitating. It's not our friend. Best wishes on your decision.
Scary, praying that Medicaid will approve your surgery. It would be foolish of them not to do it. I think it will cost them more if in the future you come in with back problem because of the imbalance.
Jeanie, have you tried the KT tape? You can find it at Big5 or Sport Authority.
Fourminor, hope you're healing well.
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Scary - no need to worry - you will get it covered - I believe Medicaid - medicare depts. are understaffed... slower to process vs say an anthem blue cross plan,,,, if you need a half of a Xanax for the next week to sleep, it is better to sleep and try to keep calm right now and not be off schedule and exhausted going into surgery - keep you strength up now as you need it to heal next week,,, good luck hon.
Flannery - great post - I agree - everyone has to decide what is right for them but helpful info knowing any surgery done may effect future surgery options or healing etc if ever needed.
thank you all for addressing my concerns - I was wondering about using the natural side arm and how much pain will be in on that lift side? it is the side I have been relying on for most things instead of my poor right side (MX side) I guess I may actually need to TRY the valium after surgery to sleep as I do expect the pain to be pretty bad with surgery both sides and not being able to lean on left side like I like to.... will see - guess it has to be taken care of - best to get it going to get to point so I can move on and get back to my life again hopefully begin 2015 feeling pretty good again! I hope!!!!!!
I just got a DANSKIN seemless sport bar at walmart - 9.99 - love it - straps are not racer back which I prefer non racer back, and I must say well made - I is new style they have there now and similar to the genie bra style but has more supportive fabric - I think this may be a great everyday bra for me for a while as the bandeau I keep wearing seems to be cutting off all circulation around chest...maybe wearing straps will take some pressure off the chest - the bandeau band digs in a bit - -
Frostecat - that hostess had nerve! you should go back and suggest they offer curbside delivery to your car so you pay them at your own car window!
Jeanie Beanie - good luck at DR - try moist heat - you put a damp cloth into the opening of heating pad and turn on and apply moist heat to painful area 10 mins few times day or night... reduces pain!
I do not know how the BMX patients get back up and running - unless they have hired help or a lot of great family or friends to pitch in and allow them to not lift and use the two arms and shoulders - I can not imagine and I do not regret doing just the right side - - - I actually would also not like to lift my left side - I would not have chosen to if it was so super droopy - but it really is - I was a 6 mile day runner for 20 yrs,,, it took it's toll - I guess I ran in the wrong bras too,,, LOL
I just really will be so happy if I do better then I imagine right now - and if I heal faster then normal, I will be drinking more nutrient packed bevs - like stuff with extra vit C that helps healing and cell renewal and will try eating more fresh fruits and replenish the body with powerful antioxidants after surgery - and hope the meds from surgery get washed out - flushed out of me quick - I hate pills!
i also like to get surgery over with before all the hospitals are full of the germs that appear around now (flu, ebola, fall sinus infections etc)!!!!
oh did anyone get antibiotics during their surgery as precaution? I was given 10 day antibiotics from uni mx - to ward off infection - I hope to get it for the next surgery too - anyone else do that???
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Hi everyone! I'm doing fine, had about 48 hours of discomfort after fill, felt like I worked out way too hard with my pec (didn't people say a hard workout tears muscle fibers?), and had to up pain meds but it seems to have eased up now and last night I slept for the first time without any Benadryl or Melatonin, which is the first time I think since diagnosis. I am mailing back the breast forms I bought because there's enough in the TE that I just need a little shaper thing from a bathing suit and of course a looser shirt and its subtle enough. If I take a little motrin or advil during the day its possible for me to not be conscious of the TE, if I don't take, I am conscious of it, but its not painful as much as weird. I think that's the hardest mental obstacle now.
I also have had great bra confusion. I had purchased four Ameona bras, two black, two nude which I figured I'd wear when I went back to work until exchange at least. I was happy to find them in my size 32DD, which isn't as common to locate. However, having finally calmed down enough to inspect the TE and having had my first follow up with PS to ask about what I am looking at, I found that he routinely puts the TE a little below the IMF (I thought I had a seroma from maybe removing the drains too early.) At present I'm using the two front hook closure post surgical bras with the bottom hooks left open which seems to work. PS nurse was like, "You don't need a bra," but hello, what about my right boob? How is that supposed to look in work clothes? Camis seem to be the best option.
I tried them on anyway yesterday, now regretting I didn't go up in band size a bit (how was i to know TE would go under band?) and I managed to pull both of them lower on the left since the cup is not filled out at all. I'm hoping that will work. Maybe one of those extension thingys. Buying a few bras was my way of managing the anxiety of returning to normal life and I really like the feeling of proper support, which cami's don't have. But I don't have the money to do this again.
MomWriter, if you scroll back though the pages you will see i was having a near mental breakdown the weekend before my surgery when my surgeon accidentally filled out my surgical consent for a bilateral mastectomy. I did not want to remove my what I hope is healthy right breast, even despite this being my second primary, although I had a lot of anxiety that I could be making the wrong decision and would someday pay for it, that I was too attached to myself as I was. I also had symmetry concerns and knowing that I'll probably need something done to lift and possibly reduce my right breast depending on how well expansion goes (and I had RT to my left breast five yeas ago so nothing is assured). In the end, I felt very similar to the other ladies here, and now two weeks out from surgery I can't imagine going through it on both sides. My surgeon echoed some of it when she said that I would have to be OK with the possible (but small) risk of a complication on the prophylactic side, while at that point chemo was still an unknown, versus the chance of a new (for me third) primary down the road, which we again would hopefully detect at an early stage due to aggressive screening. Neither palatable. Certainly its easier to accept the loss of a breast when a cancer is going with it. But where I finally found mental peace was the idea that if I wanted to I could still remove the right breast in the future, at which point I'd know a whole lot more about what the process involved.
My final path showed the tumor was less than 2 cm with clean margins and a clean sentinel node. However, it also showed LCIS, which means I have a higher risk of something showing up on the right just from that. I don't know myself what i'm going to do yet. I'm just filing it as a later decision that I don't need to deal with right now. Right now i need to focus on the reconstruction of my left breast, and I have to meet with a medical oncologist who is definitely putting me on tamoxifen and crossing my fingers that oncotype is low enough to leave it at that.
None of it is easy because no matter what statistics are, no one knows what the future holds for any of us. If I could choose the future, I'd like to keep my right breast with me for the rest of the ride though.
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To all the unis out there contemplating a lift/reduction/augement on the native side....everyone heals differently, of course, and it recovery depends on what else you might need to have done (i.e. mud flap revision, fat grafting, etc) but I'd like to say based on my personal experience, that the difference between mastectomy and exchange + lift/augment was night and day. For me it was like comparing a root canal to a teeth cleaning! I was so drugged up and out of it for a month after mx but was back to driving and such (while being careful!) within a week after EX surgery. I didn't have any extra work done other than implant put in on left and lift+augment on right but PS did say he popped in about 8 different sizes before finally settling so there was alot of propping up and lying back down! I went in about 6am and was back home by about 3pm. I took some Flexeril for a couple of days and then Advil for a couple of days, then nothing. I personally felt the MX was much much more difficult to deal with. And I really never had any problem using the lifted side's arm. They don't move your pec muscle around for that so you don't have all that muscle pain.
Anyway, just wanted to post my experience in case it helps someone with their decisions!
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My surgery was approved, thank God! My native side is a G-H, so yeah, I need it, and my neck and back will feel better too, in addition to the red irritated crease below the breast. Hugs to all.
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Scary-Yay!!! Rejoicing with you. Praise God. Fourminor and Sparkle were right. Medicare/Medicaid are just slow in authorization. Now try to rest before surgery (easier said than done). I find praying and cleaning help with my nervous energy. Best wishes on your surgery.
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lala, thank you for that post. I am worried over the exchange and lift, although most say, its no big deal. I didn't think the mastectomy was nearly as bad as I had feared. I was very sore, much longer than I thought I would be but I woujld not call it actual pain. As it turns out, most of my discomfort was from the TE, but I'm filled now and don't really even notice them, other than I was told not to sleep on that side. Both sides are basically the same size now but the TE side sits higher, and its hard to disguise that. So, I will be glad not to deal with that and always be wearing a jacket or a print or something to try to hide that little fact.
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thank you for the support and encouragement ladies. they will biopsy the huge portion of breast that they remove on the non-cancer side to make sure it IS non-cancer. About 30 years ago, I had an excisional biopsy done on that breast and have had an ugly scar there ever since. it never really bothered me, but it was a reminder that there was once a huge hard lump that was of questionnable origin until they confirmed it was benign. But, on the cancerous breast, they kept doing needle biopsies for almost 15 years, and in different hospitals, and they always concentrated on that one spot, and said it was benign, until the latest one, which said it was cancerous. It makes me think: maybe it was a good thing that they removed the big lump on the left as soon as they found it, because it may have become cancerous in the future. Praying they don't find cancer on that side.
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Yesterday I stopped up at my office to get my son his flu shot and had my first experience of seeing someone talking to me glance multiple times at my chest. Also everyone seemed amazed that I looked healthy. Of course I look better than I did, I've been away from the public for three weeks, with my husband picking up housework and orders to just rest, eat well and take walks, the cancer has been removed from my body, and I'm starting to sleep some nights without any sleep medication again. Basically, bring on retirement...except oops I have to work for another 20 years.
Re the chest glancing, well, I guess part of it is just human curiosity. Anyway that person is leaving so I won't see them again when i get back, but I imagine this will not be the last of that experience!
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4minor - Glad you are doing better. The chest glancing - it is just the beginning. Most people that are aware of your situation (especially women) will try and sneak a peak when you see them for the first time. It can be awkward to say the least, but I think once they get over their first "look" they realize that there really isn't that much to see.
Some of my closest friends - I actually held my arms out to the side and told them to go ahead and take a look just to get the awkwardness of their eyes moving downwards trying to catch a glimpse out of the way. The comment I heard most "you can't even tell", and you probably will too.
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Fourminor, I am glad you are on the mend. I love your humor. I'm going back to work next week myself ...the thought of retiring did cross my mind, but I have to work may be for another 10+ years because health insurance is crazy expensive. I want to enjoy life when I still have the health. We all know life is too short.
It's funny you gals mentioned the stares from people you know. I thought it was just me only. What is weird is that I was/am flat to begin with.
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Loveroflife - Funny that you say that! A coworker of mine still can't help but glance at the left side of my chest and I was/am an AA-A cup so it perplexes me as to what difference she really thinks she's going to see. It could be interesting at the end of the year when I begin reconstruction as I've kept that decision to myself at work.
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Hi Mich71, please do let me know how delayed reconstruction goes as I will be having reconstruction in January. Hopefully, TE placement is not as bad as MX. PS said that he will need to put in 2 JP drains...not too excited when I heard that. I'll be a month and 10 days behind you.
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Thanks for the posts on what happens after replacement/lift surgery! It is has helped me with questions for my PS that I had not thought of before. Mine is next Tuesday and I'm nervous but ready to get this all over with! Sounds like recovery time is varied, so I'll just hope for the best. Hopefully I'll be back to "normal" by Turkey Day!
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Is - anxious/nervous/excited all rolled into one. Good luck on Tuesday - wishing you smooth sailing - and keep us posted!
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Jeanie - curious when you had your lift and implant in - was that July ? how long did you try to not lift anything around the house or use your arms too much - would you guess 3 weeks before you began trying to do mostly everything or longer? just trying to see how long I will be out of commission - ?? my exchange and lift in 11//11... had my pre op today - he is going to use mentor smooth round 300 cc - know small but I have think skin tissue and small frame/bones, so he can't go to big - I was hoping for 350 cc! oh well - I will hopefully heal well that is my hope.
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home from the hospital. i had to go out of town for the surgery, and we stayed in a hotel for 2 nights. very happy with the results so far, but in so much pain!!! but it has already decreased from yesterday at this time to today..
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Glad you are through it Scary. Keep up on your pain meds and don't let it get away from you. Just remember, time is your friend and every day will get better.
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thank you Frostecat. i think the steristrips under the reduced breast are causing the most discomfort. but i'm glad i don't look like elsie the cow anymore. now i just have to wait and make sure the removed tissue isn't cancerous, then i can really relax.
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haha - Scary - I know the feeling of looking like Elsie. You know a huge fear of mine was wondering if there was cancer in the lifted. breast. I actually forgot to ask my PS about my path results until my 2nd follow-up appointment with him. He thought he told me, but with everything else going on, he didn't, but I did breathe a sigh of relief for sure.
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Frostecat, that is my only worry right now. i don't even care if my new boobs look perfect. they look smaller, so they are better, lol. i just don't want to deal with cancer in the other breast. i'm having anxiety about that. also, i am allergic to all the hydrocodone types of painkillers. and i have hardly any appetite since the surgery. but i don't mind that part. if it continues, though, i will ask the dr. when i see him this coming thurs.
hugs to all my sistas!!!!
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Scary-I was thinking about you. Glad you are home resting now. I'm sorry about the pain and lack of appetite. Are you at least take anti inflammatory for the pain? The body tends to tense up when you are in pain so keep up with the pain med just as Frostecat said. Make sure you don't take the anti inflammatory on an empty stomach though. ((Hugs))
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sparkle,,, I had 2 separate surgeries, my implant was in May,,,, and my lift was in July, I really didn't have any major problems with either, the only problem I am still having is my incision for my lift, trying to get the incision healed has been a long road, due to my Dr wanting me to wear a bra 24/7 which cuts into the incision. I would say 3 weeks is fair but everyone heals different. I am just about healed from my October Sx, back to do everything, I just don't overdo as my body lets me know when I am doing to much,,, try not to worry and just take your pain meds and do as your dr says,,, it will be ok,,, nothing like our Mastectomy....... Healing HUGZ to all,,,,,,, J
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thank you loveroflife. i am taking advantage of the lower appetite, for now. i had a chocolate slimfast shake for lunch. for breakfast, i had some tomato juice and 4 potato chips, lol. tonight i will probably have soup. i have been cold since the surgery, even if others are warm. i wanted the heat on in the motel room, and hubby wanted the a/c on. hubby just redressed my bandages, and put a menstral pad (i haven't had a period in over 3 years; i use them for bladder accidents when i sleep) on the spots where my bra is rubbing on the incisions. but i have been extra grouchy.
p.s. i love seeing oil in the drains. that's liquified fat.
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is lorazapam better then Xanax for anyone who has tried both for severe anxiety and worry that won't stop? I am just getting very nervous about 2nd surgery and what happens is I can't relax - then I am trying to fill my mind by doing things around house and I am super exhausted but I can't lay on couch and chill - and feeling maybe I should begin taking the Xanax so I settle down and get some rest? any advice appreciated.. anyone else get very anxious and not able to sit still and go around cleaning and doing laundry, and things in yard - just to be trying to get mind off the anxiety?0 -
Sparkle, at least you are using your energy constructively! We all handle things differently, but I think I did that more in preparation for being laid up for awhile, knowing that I wouldn't get to things for awhile. Funny thing is, by the time you start feeling like doing those things again post surgery, it usually does need it again.
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Scary,
Glad to hear you got what you wanted and you sailed through and are home healing!
Speaking of incisions, has anyone tried putting anything on the scars (once they have closed and scabs have fallen off)?
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Scary - Have you tried diazepam for pain meds? Generic of Valium. I did not like the hydrocordone and found that the diazepam kept my head clearer and I slept great. Don't know if it falls in the same category for allergies though.0 -
i will find out about alternative pain meds at my next visit thursday. i take lyrica for my fibromyalgia anyway, so if i just add otc tylenol it seems to help. seven-ten days after surgery, i can take ibuprofen and other blood thinners again, and they always work. these drains are disgusting and annoying, but when i see how much is coming out, i am grateful that stuff isn't in my body anymore. so i don't want them to pull the drains too soon. Hugs!
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Sparkle2014, thank you for the encouraging words. i am a bit behind on reading posts and usually only see the most recent. the anesthesia still isn't out of my body, because i am in a daze. Hugs.
p.s. I am SO jealous of ladies with small boobs. it sure does make healing easier than having 18 inch scars around each side of my body. but small ones also look much nicer, and they have more choices of cute shirts to wear. i am now wearing a shirt that didn't fit me before. but under the shirt, it's a very ugly sight.
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