Hello, I am an older lady and live alone. Please can you advise me on how long I am likely to need someone to live with me after mastectomy and how long should it take me to feel back to normal. Hopefully no other treatment needed. Thank you.
Hello @Lyndie
Your recovery time will to some extent depend on how you generally recover from general anaesthetics: I know it can take some people longer than others.
I had a lumpectomy and sentinel node biopsy (rather than a mastectomy, so hopefully someone who has had a mastectomy will be able to advise you further particularly if you have a drain inserted). I had two cuts to recover from. For me the more “difficult” cut was the SNB as it restricted my shoulder and I wasn’t able to lift my arms very easily for a while: I believe this also applies for mastectomy patients too, and you are likely to be given a set of daily exercises to do to help keep you shoulders and arms mobile. I would suggest that you won’t necessarily need someone to stay with you for long, but would recommend having friends coming in to help so you don’t over exert yourself and slow down your healing process. The full healing process will take a number of weeks and you are likely to still feel some discomfort and tiredness from time to time for quite a while.
Wishing you well with your treatment and hope everything goes to plan
AM xxx
I am 57 and had two masectomies ( one at a time ) and I found it was nice to have someone around my first night home bc the pain medication made me feel very unstable. After I stopped the narcotics on day two I really was fine on my own just taking acetaminophen. I know some people might need to take narcotics longer so you may want to have someone be available to stay longer with you just in case.