Surgery August 2018
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Rachel- thank you for your kind words and advice. It’s definitely a greiving process. I had hoped for a low number but..... here I am. Can I ask how you are doing and feeling now that all is completed?
Hapa- that’s great to know. I will keep that in mind for sure re first visit.
Elijahgrl, it’s a test used to evaluate potential for reoccurrence and/or benefit of chemo. I know very little :-)0 -
Now it is time for a pain pill. I only have 4 left. Also, I threw up everything I ate today, so any Tylenol on a empty stomach doesn't sound like a good idea... I am starting to feel the pain. Any suggestions? Tomorrow marks exactly a week post op. I am emtional, constipated, overwhelmed by the number of people that want to visit and I only have 3 pain pills left. I cried really hard today, but that only hurt my chest.
No luck with the stool softeners but I did drink some magnesiuim citrate and was relaxing outside when that kicked in with cramps. Finally had a BM after 8 days and while I am doing it, I got sweaty and threw up my breakfast in my bathroom garbage can.
I guess it can't get any worse, right. Only better. F cancer.
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Contact your doctor asap....either your surgeon or GP. I understand the stress of rationing pain pills. I am pretty sure your dr will prescribe you more. I am 5 weeks post op, made an appt with my gp to get some anti anxieties as well as pain pills. She did it without question. Also, I have one hydromorphone saved up..---just in case--. Also, beg off visits. People will understand. Give yourself time to be alone and to heal. It is all just so hard.
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Trying to eat fruit but I am so bloated. I see my surgeon on Wednesday. Hopefully she can help. In the meantime, stool softeners and prune juice. These expanders feel like they are taking on a life of their own. So many issues because of this damn cancer. My chest muscles are crazy mad. It feels weird.
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wonderwoman- I feel your pain! My expanders feel like they are causing more pain than the surgery itself. Especially at the bottom of the expanders. My PS said it’s where the expander is resting on my skin. It. Hurts. So. Bad. The drains are another story. Weighing down hard. The PS thinks they will come out Thursday. I’m cautiously optimistic. Does anyone else have expander pain? Does it get better with time or maybe after they are inflated? Ugh. This sucks.0
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Trying to eat fruit but I am so bloated. I see my surgeon on Wednesday. Hopefully she can help. In the meantime, stool softeners and prune juice. These expanders feel like they are taking on a life of their own. So many issues because of this damn cancer. My chest muscles are crazy mad. It feels weird.
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how are you doing Kiso
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Wonder Woman- I hope your tummy feels better. I’m semi-regular if I eat prunes and take mag citrate gummies but I’m an IBS-C girl and I take trulance daily, so I stay pretty comstiapted. I think we are still swollen with fluid too. My torso is just kinda puffy all the way around. The expanders did hurt me quite a bit until just today or yesterday so maybe you will turn a corner soon! I’m two weeks out tomorrow. The second week was way better
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Another sleepless and painful night. I just took my last pain pill. I am not sure how long I can go on without sleep. My expanders feel like they are rocks in my chest. They are more square shaped than anything. My nipples are not in the correct position due to muscle spasms. The Valium, 2 mg baby dose, is not helping. I am just suffering here. This is the most painful "recovery" I have ever had. If I am still in this much pain later I guess I will have the doctor paged. Happy Labor Day.
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wonderwomen
Call your doctor the last thing you want is to end up back in the hospital for dehydration like what happened to me.
Not fun, take care of yourself ok even wonder woman asked for help sometimes.
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So I had my last drain taken out on Thursday but I still have the wound ie scab and now I am getting drainage from the bottom of my wound. I am having to keep a bandage over my boob to keep it from soiling my clothes. I thought it was supposed to reabsorb into the tissues. I had no signs of infection or fever but am getting tired of having to bandage it.0
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WonderWoman: Get more pain pills. Miralax helped my counter the constipation. This whole thing is brutal enough with out being in pain too. I kept trying to move to Tylanol too soon. It was really 4 or 5 weeks where it was sufficient and I could get off Norco. In retrospect I wish I hadn't tried to be a hero and had just been easier on myself in this regard. I had prepectoral expanders ( on top of the muscle) so wasn't quite as in pain but what I've read is that the muscle is spasming when it's subpectoral so no not only are you healing from the surgery but also this. I've hear people taking Adivan for the spasms. I ended up not pooping and getting into the same situation as you did. Miralax and mild of magnesia have really been my friend. I've also taken 5 psyllium husk capsules and Calcium Magnesium pills everyday since. I eat lots of fresh leafy greens too. Constipation has been an issue through chemo too.
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Sadlynew201: I don't think I responded to your question about how I'm doing with chemo in this forum. I didn't have horrible SEs with my chemo. I had 4 doses every three weeks (12 weeks) of Taxotere and Cytoxan. I lost my hair. A little peripheral Neuropothy that will hopefully clear up in a few weeks. I'm retaining water right now but that's supposed to clear too. Also manageable with the right meds SEs like nausea, a little bone pain, constipation. My eyes are tearing a lot too which is common with Taxotere.
The 'starting chemo in June 2018' forum was a giant life saver because we shared our fears and solutions for dealing with SEs.
The hardest one is the first one because you don't know what to expect and how to manage your side effects.
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Hi ladies ... I wish I had joined this group pre surgery, but I just got up the courage to post for the first time yesterday. I'm more naturally a lurker, but it really does help to be in active contact with others going through the same thing, doesn't it? I can relate sooo much to what everyone is saying here.
My bmx was last Tuesday (8/28). I was in the hospital overnight. That button and I were huge friends that night. The hospital staff seemed pretty indifferent and didn't bother me much. I had a catheter in, as well as my lovely pain med button, so honestly didn't mind the solitude. It was a very weird night. Pain, unintentional moaning, ugh. I was a mess. I was still a mess in the morning when I had to get up and try to get the remainder of the anesthesia out of my system and start moving around. The nurses were pretty stingy with the pain meds, imo, but thankfully I was able to go home in the early afternoon.
I can so relate to your issues with constipation, WonderWoman! I FINALLY had a BM in the middle of the night, and this was after taking a magnesium supplement every evening, and finally resorting to the magnesium calm drink yesterday. I was desperate. My stomach was killing me. Three doses over the course of the day, and I finally ended up on the toilet at 2 am. Cold sweats and nausea ensued, and I was sitting there with a zip lock "barf" bag at the ready. Ugh. Not my best moment during this ordeal.
But I pooped, so yay! Little victories, y'all.
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hi crawfish! My bmx was the same date as yours! I saw the crawfish name and heard the “y’all”. Are you from Louisiana or the south? I’m in Misssissippi. Glad you found this site. It’s been incredibly helpful while (trying to) recover from this surgery and also for what’s to come after surgery. So welcome!
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Thanks for the welcome, Sadlynew. I'm a Louisiana native, but now am a North Carolina girl. I don't miss the giant insects and the suffocating heat, but man I do miss the food. Especially the things I don't typically make myself, like boudin. Mmmmm.... boudin.
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Thanks everyone. I slept pretty good lastnight. I called my doctor and they offered for someone to come in and pick up a pain script. They also said I could try alternating Advil and Tylenol every 4 hours. Since my doctor is 45 minutes away and my husband went back to work today, I am going to try and wait it out. I see the doctor tomorrow for a check up so I will get some answers then.
Thanks for all the feedback. I went and had a great lunch at my sister's house yesterday and I was so worn out and uncomfortable I slept for four hours straight, first time since I had my surgery on 8/27. I am not sure why the nights are so long but I did read that insomnia can occur during this process.
I see the plastic surgeon tomorrow too. I will ask him if these expanders are supposed to feel like a square rock under my chest. It is all so strange. I am starting to think that I should have just had my small boobs replaced with small implants all at the same time. Not sure if I want to upgrade any longer. Too late for that. I guess the thought of having a cleavage was my bright light at the end of this on going dark tunnel of bad news.
I will get my new pathology report tomorrow. I am nervous but the waiting drives me crazy. I wonder why they did not tell me the results over the phone. I swear the doctor said she would call me but much of the day of surgery is blurry so I will just wait.
Thanks for all the well wishes and advice. It sounds like we at least have kept our sense of humor about this awful thing that has changed all of our lives. Oh and fuck cancer!
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Oh boy what a journey this is. After very long consideration and hearing different things from surgonc and plastics (plastic said they can save my nipple, surgonc told me they cannot save the nipple of my affected breast) I decided to have only a left mastectomy with expanders. I figured I'd get one done see how it feels and then go for the second one if I feel I can handle it. Let me tell ya, that was a smart decision on my part. I hadmy surgery on Aug 30 and woke up feeling like a truck drove over me and then backed up overnight me a few more times. Wow!! Not only did they put in expanders, they also filled it with 500cc instantly. The plastic surgeon promised I'd wake up with a new boob and I'm happy to say I did! I only stayed at the hospital overnight and was discharged home next day. The first two nights were the worst but things got a bit better after that. I was up and walking around, cooking and so on. The worst was getting from a laying position to a sitting position. Man that requires so many muscles I didn't know I even had. I am numb all throughout my boob and annoyingly my underarm. Anyone else have that? My first post op appt was today and they noticed cap refill around incision is too slow so they took out 100cc. That's a lot of fluid and I feel so much better now. I can cough without wincing. I don't take any pain meds though, maybe Tylenol from time to time. But they did change my antibiotic from Keflex to Bactrim since they also noticed redness around the incision. As a result, they did not remove my drains even though one of them barely drains 25cc a day. Those of you who chose to do bmx are my heroes. I couldn't do it. I wish you all speedy recovery!! Oh also they took two lymph nodes and they were both negative...WooHoo! I'll get the final pathology report on the 12th.
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Wow! There are a lot of posts since I last checked in! I'll be honest, I haven't had a chance to read them yet, but I will as soon as I can!
Just an update. My surgery went well. Double Mastectomy on 8/14 with no reconstruction (I'll do it later!). 1 lymph node removed on right side, 3 removed on left. One node on the left had like 20 tumor cells in it, the other two were clear. The drains were awful, but are out. Dog ears under each arm are really super annoying. I'm hoping the swelling will go down so that I can put my arms flat against my body again. I feel like I'm walking like a linebacker!
Started Physical Therapy last Saturday. Had one session so far. It was something! She stretched me farther than I thought I could stretch. It was extremely uncomfortable, but not painful. Afterwards, I felt so much better. I've been working on the exercises every day. It's really hard to do, but I'm doing them. I'm tired of not being able to move my arms like I should!
I will need radiation on the left side. He said because of the tumor size (was 7cm before chemo - after chemo surgery showed that it shrank to 2.4), my age (I'm 43), the agressiveness of the cancer (grade 3) and the tumor cells in the one lymph node, he wants to do radiation. I need to get my arms over my head asap - he wants me to come in next week to start the planning process and I'm supposed to have my arms over my head by then. Not sure that is a possibility, but I'll try my best.
Met with the oncologist for a follow up and the first thing he asks me is, "you're done having kids right?" I said "yes" Then he tells me to think about having my ovaries out. Ugh. I told him, "I can't even think about another surgery right now...." He said no rush, he'll put me on tamoxifen after radiation is done and then when he's sure I'm in menopause he'll switch me over to an aromatase inhibitor.
I still haven't gotten back to driving yet. My drains are out, but with my limited arm mobility and sore chest (I'm afraid to put a seatbelt against it) I haven't tried to drive yet. Hoping that I'll be ready next week.
Tried sleeping in bed with my hubby over the weekend. Didn't work out too well. I couldn't sleep. I was so worried that he would bump my chest in his sleep and hurt me that I spent the night guarding my chest with my arms every time he would stir in his sleep. Finally, around 3am I gave up and went back to the recliner. It's super comfy, but my feet hang off the edge. Oh well!
Well, that's it for now. Hope you ladies are all doing well. I'm going to go back and read all your posts as soon as I can! Sending much love and healing wishes your way!
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Hi Paisley, sorry you are facing more surgery, not what you want to be thinking about right now! I also had BMX with no reconstruction on the 14th. I know exactly what you mean about walking like a linebacker! I have been doing the exercises too, and found that just in the last couple of days I have really increased my range of motion and can just about get the arms right over my head. But I didn't have any nodes removed so maybe easier for me at this point. Also nervous to get back behind the wheel and no way would I be sleeping in the same bed as my husband. Feeling very protective of my chest area!
Have been out and about a bit for appointments, walks etc. Was very self conscious at first but nobody has appeared to even notice the lack of a bustline. As my husband says, anyone that doesn’t know me will just think I am naturally flat chested. Hmmm....
Thanks for the love and healing wishes - back at you xx
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Sheri take it easy with those drains lol. Good for you exercising and wow walking all those miles right so soon.
Yeah imma nuke those suckers for sure. Going Friday to get this last drain out, can’t wait.
Onc wants me to take oral chemo after rads since A/C and taxol failed me. idk Seriously if I wanna do chemo again. Too many meds, Herceptin, perjeta, femara I start next week too, rads and add oral chemo. Omg
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needing so many prayers now. Just got the final path back following my bmx. The doctor said that there was about 2cm left of tumor in my breast (original excised amount was 1cm). (When it was originally excused, doctors thought it was just a lump). And, contrary to the report I received after surgery, 1 of my 6 nodes is positive (8mm). I am crushed. I’ve cried and cried. I’ve looked at my sweet kids faces, just hoping I get to see them get married. This has completely wrecked me. My husband is so incredibly supportive but I feel like I’m past the point of support. My dr was able to get me a PET scan tomorrow. Please. Please. Pray for no other cancers or cancer cells. I’m trying to keep it together for the kids and continuing to work but I’m almost completely broken. Found out my onco score was 26 last week as well. This has shattered me to pieces. I am talking with MDAnderson to try and get an appointment. I just don’t know what else to do. Thank you for letting me vent. Hugs to all.0
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deep breaths Sadlynew2018. I know just how you feel. Getting my path report was as hard to deal with as getting my original diagnosis. I sobbed for 2 days. And then I just told myself that I don’t know how many years I have left and I’m not going to waste them crying over cancer. That’s not to say that I haven’t had bad days. Today was actually pretty shitty bc my MO said he won’t start chemo with this last lingering drain still in me, I’m on the 2nd day of my cycle and even though I don’t have real breasts anymore they still weirdly ache like they used to when I had my period and I’m hoping it isn’t infection. I hope you can find some mental peace and I’m sending prayers your way.
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So sorry to hear your path report was not what you had expected. Wishing you strength for the next steps. Gentle hugs x
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Sadly - chiming in to send support and kind thoughts your way. I know just how you feel, too. I actually found my path reports much more upsetting than the initial diagnosis. It felt to me like it went from something largely curable to guaranteed to shorten my lifespan. I worry about leaving my kids and cried to my husband that, "I didn't want to be lucky to live 10 years" and wanted the 40 I had been planning on. But we find a way through it and it is easier once the initial shock has worn off. I got a lot of comfort and reassurance from the Stage 3 survivors threads. As lots of people have said on this forum (and I have found very true myself!), you will feel better when you have all the info and can move on to making a plan. We'll get through this.
KK2018 - sorry to hear your MO is delaying chemo! It must feel like having the rug pulled out from under you.
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Hello All!
I got my drains out yesterday and the pathology report says no cancer in one node but the other has isolated tumor cells. So, I will have chemo in two weeks. My breast surgeon says the chemo is protocal to get rid of any microscopic cells left. She also said I probably will not need radiation.
It was great to not have tubes hanging out of my body. I still have pain under my rib cage but I am trying to spread out the time between pain pills to wean myself off.
My hair has been falling out since my surgery last week. I read that is normal. I guess the chemo may leave me bald, but I am hoping to have thicker hair grow back.
I am awaiting the oncotype score. Two weeks seems like a long time to wait, but I am no pathologist.
I get to take quick showers but I am still unable to wash my hair. The wet look is still in, right?
Keep on swimming ladies! We are all in this together! XOXO
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Sadly, I’m sorry about your results. You’re always in my prayers. Hope you get some good news soon!
Does anyone else have pain in their armpit? It’s been unbearable. It’s so sensitive I can’t put my arm down. My breast incision is okay, I don’t feel much pain there but under my arm is really bad. I called my PS office today and the nurse told me to go to Urgent care if it’s that bad and she refused to page the doctor. It was so upsetting I just gave up
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Kiso20, I think everyone who has had lymph nodes out would have pain in their armpit but if it's getting worse or is very severe, I would get it seen to. It could be the start of an infection. Are there other signs of infection such as swelling, heat, or redness? I'm really sorry that the nurse refused to page the doctor. I pray you get the help you need and please let us know how you get on.
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Aussie-cat thanks for the input. The site is want but no redness and I don’t have a fever. I just keep thinking it can’t be infection since they didn’t cut under my arm, they got the nodes through my mastectomy incision. Would I still get infection from that?
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Kiso20, don't let them discount the possibility of nerve damage. It is very real, but surprisingly, many women have a difficult time getting support for Post Mastectomy Pain Syndrome (PMPS). If it is a topical sting/burn, please push for nerve damage consideration. Gabapentin/Lyrica might be considered to help you through this. Fortunately, it is often temporary.
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