prophylactic mastectomy after RNY

Good to hear from you.  Sorry that the drains did not work out and you have to get the fluids drained weekly.  Seeing the drains decrease daily kept me motivated and let me know that I was moving in the right direction.  But at least the medical staff are seeing you regularly and monitoring your progress.  So do they still think you have an infection?  Did they put you back on antibiotics?  I was pretty tired at the beginning.  Surgery took a lot out of me.  That was probably the longest surgery that I had so it can be quite draining.  Not sleeping well doesn't help matters at all.  How is your appetite?  I struggled to eat early out.  So that helped with making me feel weak.  Gotta keep eating to get that energy level up.

So sorry that your family is only looking at the negative side of things.  They should be looking at it as something that you have done to prevent you from being like those family members whose life was cut short by this disease.  You have to not let them get you down and keep thinking of how good that feeling was when you woke up in recovery and realized how much you reduced your risk of breast cancer.

I might be gone for a few days.  I am having brachioplasty tomorrow morning.  So I might be out of it for a few days.

 

Take care of yourself and think good thoughts for me tomorrow.

 

JoAnn

Good luck on your procedure. Will be thinking of you! Yes they had me back on antibiotics and my appetite is shot. I am making myself drink protein drinks, and as long as the food is ok by my NUT i am eating what i can, and yes, exhausted way more then he rny or my knee replacement. Thanks for that info...i was kinda scared to call my NUT as they were not crazy about me even doing this so soon. But it sounds about right! Rest up and speedy healing!

Well, today was a big day.  My first shower after my procedure.  It felt so good.  Things are looking good.  I have no real swelling that I can see.  The bandages survived the shower so I haven't seen the incisions yet.  No oozing or leaking.  Sleep is tough because I am not a back sleeper and I am afraid to put that kind of pressure on my sides yet.  A little tough getting me back into the garment - I have a second one - so it was new and pretty tight.  But between hubby and I we managed to make that happen.  I am warm because the garment is tight and long sleeved and because of some additional lipo on my thighs, I have to wear that garment too.  I had to put the air on - no way that I am going to wear this crap in the heat.  But I am doing good.  I had him do some revisions to my nipple reconstruction which is still covered by a bandage so I haven't seen that yet.  He also did some fat grafting in one of my breasts to balance it a better with the other.  That I could see and it looks wonderful.

How about you?  Things moving along?  Feeling any stronger today?  Pushing those protein drinks will definitely help with the healing process so even if that is all you have, they are good for you.  When is your next followup appointment?

I'm sure that your surgeon would not have done the surgery this close to the other if he didn't think it was safe.  No sense being thin if the cost is delaying this surgery and winding up with breast cancer.  I know that my PS wouldn't do surgeries too close together.  The body does need a little time to recover. 

Take care.

JoAnn

So Glad you are on the road to recovery!.  Yuck hot clothes. That's awesome that you got him to do all that work at the same time. I am going for my pre-op for hyserectomy next week. (It is scheduled in September). I think that's correct about them not agreeing to do it if it was to soon. I am feeling a little more human today, but still incredible pain, so it's hard to not be crabby. I had way more pain with the mastectomy than I did with the RNY, or even with my knee replacement for that matter. I have been going to plastics every Tuesday and Friday to get drained. They are still getting a lot of fluid out of the seromas on my sides...although now it's not as much cause they finally told me about a sport bra. My medical group is not that great. Everything looks like it's healing nicely, and pretty even...I told them I wanted a day surgery at the outpatient surgical center to put the silicone breasts in...not that I wouldn't appreciate a night in the hospital, but after the original fiasco, I need to be close to my pain medication at home!

Did they have you under when they did the nipple work?  I am thinking of skipping that altogether and just buying the glue on ones, after all this. I am such a wuss when it comes to pain, and have just about no patience left with my plastic surgeon or the hospital.

Glad you are home and have a helping hand there, and that you are healing, that is a huge deal

Just checking in to see how you are doing.  How is your pain level and you ability to move around?  How did the pre-op for the hysterectomy go?  Are they also taking the ovaries? Laproscopic or open?

Update on me.  I am moving along nicely.  Saw the doc last week - he was happy with the results.  I am able to move around pretty freely at this point.  I am still wearing the compression garment full time - I have another 3 days of that - then I go to 12 hours a day.  Had a freaky thing happen yesterday - I was out and felt wetness in my left armpit.  Got myself all upset - rushed home.  Luckily it must have been a scab that came off in the shower and some crap oozed out - just took me a while to feel it.  But by the time I found it, it had stopped.  So all was good.  Just kind of freaked me out.

Hoping you are feeling better.

 

JoAnn

Glad you are ok. I had a similar  ooze freak out from the mastectomy...I am Sooooo glad I did not go to nursing school, or phlebotomy school or  medical school or anything to do with blood or ooze. How are you coming along otherwise? much pain?

 

I am feeling a lot better. I have a lot of numb feeling in my arms and my appetite is shot. I have been needing to drive a lot this week, and it's hard to turn my head around to back up the car...I can do it, but it is really sore. I slept in my bed one night, but most nights I sleep in the recliner, with a rolled towel behind my neck for support. It works, now that i have figured out exactly where and where not to put it. But I will mention to the PS tomorrow about my neck.

I go for my preop for hysterectomy tomorrow also, and honestly I may ask her to postpone for a month...I am just now feeling like i just might live.........lol.........but I am worn out. And I still have to have the expanders replaced with the implants before my insurance ends in December.....ay ay ay.....

 

Three of my other sisters tested brca positive and got the results of their testing last week. I feel emotionally like I am fighting a huge war against my physical body.

Still relieved that I don't have the original boobs.

Wish I could eat a little bit. I am getting really sick of protein shakes. Even if my appetitive was up, I also have a splint that i wear on my jaw to hold it in place because it was broken many years ago. Even the smallest bites of food are painful. So it's not that big a deal, except that in a certain way a person needs to eat, and not drink, their food.....

I've been reading on the cancer.org sites and others that a lot of people have post mastectomy pain, that it lasts years and years and years. Not the thing to be reading when the skin between my boobs and my chest wall is starting to itch like crazy.....

on the other hand, I did get a fancy dress, size 12, down from a 26 on May 1, And I did get to sing last weekend, which was about three hours out in (very much) public...."spotlights" and all.....so i guess that means I am doing ok.

hope you are getting to take it easy and recovering alright.

 

 

I really have no pain.  This was the easiest of my procedures to recover from.  I still have a few more days in my garment for 24 hours a day.  That really is my only issue at this point.  I can even get them on and off by myself now.  I seem to have full range of motion at this point although I am trying not to stretch too much.  I get to go down to 12 hours per day on Wednesday.

So sorry to hear about your sisters.  But at least now they know what decisions they have to make rather than just letting things happen and reacting to it.  They are not easy decisions to make.  But I looked at it as it was a decision that I had to make - the only issue was the timing - before or after the cancer is found.  I wish them luck.

 

Sorry to hear that pain is still an issue.  I really have no pain from my mastectomy.  For a while I had what are referred to as zingers - which I believe are nerve endings reforming and waking up.  But I haven't had one of them for a while.  As a matter of fact, during this last procedure, the doctor did a revision to my nipple reconstruction and I have had no pain from that.  I am a little over 2 years out from my mastectomy at this point.

 

If the hysterectomy is laproscopic, it is a much easier surgery to recover from but it is still general anesthesia.  So you may want to postpone it at least for a short time.  Its tough enough juggling these surgeries but having to deal with disappearing insurance as well makes it more complicated.  This is why I don't understand those folks that have all kinds of plastic surgery procedures done at the same time.  It makes it very difficult to feel like a normal person again.

Take care of yourself and keep me posted.

 

JoAnn

Thanks, you hit the nail right on the head about spacing out the surgeries. I had a LOOONNNG talk with the gyn today, and at  first she tried to say i didn't tell her about the brca issue but she had signed off on my nurse practitioners chart notes and we DID have a conversation that she did not chart. At the end of it she decided to take my ovaries also. And i still don't have to brca test. It basically came down to that she did not want to "go fishing" for them later, and she said that if I was 47 she would take them...I am 46 and a half. I flat asked her did she want to be paid the insurance rate or the federal rate, and while she did not respond to that directly, she saw my point. I told her i am not working at the moment and would rather deal with menopause now rather than after I go back to work, etc...my RNY doc is going to kill me but at least the cancer won't. LOL. I have my 4 months out appointment tomorrow with him. Nice how that scheduling worked out. So we decided to move ahead with my surgery on the 23, and even though I am still pretty tired, I saw the plastics guy from my mastectomy today too, and he said i was clear as far as he is concerned. So...yeah, I don't understand having surgeries so close together, cause I am really worn out...but I do understand it, because of insurance issues, and I guess people want to do stuff all together for being off work already, too.

 

I am not able to take hormone replacements cause of previous cardiac stuff and a TIA, but I have been drinking a soy based protein drink and I am told that can help.

 

I am scheduled to be on the maternity ward for this one, which totally sucks, but oh well. I am bringing earplugs. My parents had 18 kids and I did my time. doc says I will basically be there overnight. Thank God.

 

I told the plastics about my soreness and he seems generally pleased at my progress, he okayed me to get back in the pool today, and I plan to be swimming, or at least walking laps, up until I go in for surgery.

 

Glad to hear you have not had a lot of pain. That is encouraging. I am grateful that you are healing nicely after your surgery. I appreciate you sharing your story, helps me immensely, and is a great comfort.

 

Now I gotta find a ride to the hospital at 4 am.....

She is doing laproscopic, but may still have to convert to open, because I am tiny, and the equipment is too big sometimes. Not one size fits all, like it says on the label. LOL

Zingers. That's exactly the right word for that.

So how did your follow up appointment go? Are you still moving forward with the hysterectomy and ovary removal this month? I had the laparoscopic version of that surgery 7 years ago. My recovery from that was easy even with it being before my RNY. I felt like I could have gone to work the next day but of course did not. I didn't really notice any difference in myself. I'm thinking because I really had a chemical menapause 5 years before that when I went on tamoxifen as a breast cancer preventative. I also could not go on hrt because of the brca1. I was lucky that my side effects weren't that bad so I just lived with it.
I went back to work yesterday. I had been working from home for the past couple of weeks but it was nice to get back to the office. I now only have to wear the compression garments for 12 hours a day so I wear them at night and can be more 'normal' during the day. All incisions are healing nicely. I haven't experienced any stitches popping which it seems many experience. My doc set my expectation for a wide ugly scar but I have to say they are looking really wonderful. First day back was a little tiring but I slept good last night - LOL.
Hope you are progressing with your healing and getting ready for the next phase. Take care.
JoAnn