Its Thursday morning - the big day. Went to my brothers last night for ‘the last supper’ had a glass of red. Before settling down at midnight took a Diazepam to help me sleep. It did its job well. I slept very well with my alarm waking me up at 6.00am. Feel surprisingly calm at the moment. Anyway thanks for all your comments. I will try to get in to chat tonight, if not plse excuse me I will probably be still feeling the effects from the anaesthetic. But will chat next week. If I can I will report in tonight on this forum when it is all over. Love to you all. Ang x
All the best for today
Dot
xxx
Ang… thinking of you, sorry wasn’t here last night. Had one of those emergency computer upgrades that meant I couldn’t do a lot at the same time (click mouse and thing just whirred for 30 mins grr).
Anyway hope it’s all gone well and you’re not feeling too woozy from the the anaesthetic (made me feel odd I must admit).
Let us know how your doing soon and whatever you do don’t sit too still keep rolling those shoulders just a little bit and you’ll find you can move onto the excersises much easier, it’s really easy to be over protective of your chest and seize up.
Anyway lots of love.
Angie
Oh yeah… arnica’s great.
I had even better (mum being a homeopath does have it’s benefits) and she got me some stuff which is a post surgery homeopathic mix which they use at the london homeopathic hospital. I’m sure it contributed to my so called miraculously fast speedy recovery but it does have arnica in it and a few others that help with nerve pain, post anaesthetic effects etc. But you can get arnica almost anywhere now and even some recovery wards use the arnica cream now.
bump… hope you’re doing OK.
bumping the thread not you BTW 
hope you’re doing OK Ang.
Hi Ang. Hope you’re doing ok. Hope your recovery is quick and uneventful. Re your question about choosing my size I have gone from a GG+ cup (when last measured just before surgery to get the right band size they told me this was a fair bit too small) to a C cup. its brilliant and utterly liberating. I really was not sire about the softies at all and didn’t wear them for a week or so but I did get seromas as so much tissue was removed and was advised that the pressure of wearing the softies pinned into a cami top might help reduce them. The pressure was uncomfortable for a few days but then it feels like second nature to slip them on now. Funny as I had no issue being flat chested after such a drop in size. Started chemo yesterday so another stage in the journey.
Best wishes for your recovery
Tanya x
Hi Ang
I’ve been reading this thread and wanted to say that i hope all is well and that you have a speady recovery.
I had a bilateral mastectomy in Nov 07 with expander implants and have just recently had surgery to replace my left with a peranant implant and my right with a different expander, which will be replaced in 3 months time for a permanent implant. I was never asked what size i wanted to be and i think this was basically because i told them at the start that i wanted to be back to a 34c. I am so pleased with the results so far and have said goodbye to the prostesthis. Reconstruction has come such a long way. Even though my left is the same cup size as i was before, i feel huge due to the fullness. Its nice not having them around my ankles if you know what i mean.
Vertangie is right, keep them shoulders moving.
Hya everyone
Im back, alive n kicking. Today Wed 8th Oct and I came out yesterday afternoon. Can’t’ believe what I’ve undergone in only 5 days. That song keeps going thro my head ‘I get knocked down… but I get up again’’
Well what an experience. Went for my op as arranged on Thursday 2 Oct. I felt incredibly positive on the morning of the op, I don’t know where I got my strength from. I think we must all have this inner strength that kicks in, in times of trouble. The op went according to plan, when I came round, like you Angie, the anaesthetic made me feel odd. I had loads of silly things running thro my head, I was half asleep and half awake and my daughter was by my side all the time, she did not know what I was going on about, mind neither did I. I woke to find I had 3 drains in my body, which were a bloody nuisance, I did not like them at all. Carrying bags around with me was just a nightmare, I kept pulling on them which was awful. I did try to get on the chat line on thursday night but the hospital system would not allow it. It also would not allow me to post on the forums, Mind, I would have probably spoke a load of rubbish, still being under the influence.
Friday the next day, I walked to the bathroom in the hope of having a bath, think I was being a bit ambitious as ended up fainting, had to have oxygen, too much too soon, I think. So wash down for me and back to bed.
Saturday had one drain removed, what a strange sensation that were, like a wriggly worm coming from my body, but hot. Had to rest for an hour afterwards. This time managed to walk to bathroom and have a bath. Heaven. I felt that I could smell this fluid oozing from my body, it leaked onto my pj’s, I thought it smelt awful but no one else said they could smell it. Did anyone else feel like that? I looked at my wounds today. Not so ugly as I imagined. I do think those photos you showed me Angie helped. I thought I would be black n blue but it was not like that at all. Think maybe the arnica helped Ang, also my surgeon must have done well at sewing classes! I just need to get used to the new me now. Kept telling everyone I had gone through the first part of my op, the next part was to get a willy attached. In for a sex change not cancer! LOL My body does feel a bit strange though, think I can still feel my breasts! odd.
Sunday morning I felt all forlorn, felt so sorry for myself, felt totally useless, cannot do anything for myself. Still got these 2 drains which I am not allowed to get taken out today, maybe tomorrow. Had bloods taken today from my ankle, also they checked my BP from my leg. Bloods came back and my Hb down to 8.9, if this drops below 8 will have to have a blood transfusion. One of the symptoms of low Hb is feeling out of breath, and a whooshing in the ears. Wondered why I had to stop for breath when talking to my visitors last night. Not like me, normally I do not come up for air (gob-sh…te you see). I am now trying to eat plenty of iron food rather than take iron tablets to raise my Hb. Cannot afford constipation as have other problems which this would aggravate.
Monday second drain out, whoosh, have to rest for an hour after this. Feel a bit better, am able to move my arm more now. Felt like I was getting an electric shock when I was trying to do my exercises with this one. Must have been on a nerve or something. Been having a nerve type pain down my leg, doc to check out. May go home tues or wed, when the last drain comes out, and if the nerve pain down my leg proves to be nothing.
Tuesday third drain out, thank god for that. Need to rest again. Doc came, had me do some movements to check out nerve pain down leg, he thinks its just from lying in bed, so he letting me go today providing the sample of blood, from my ankle again, comes back ok. Must say do feel crap, just tired and out of breath. Dont think I have the strength to walk down the corridor of this massive hospital, probably need a wheelchair, but looking forward to going home, think my leg pain may subside when I get moving around.
Home - thank goodness. Put a pillow over my chest so the seat belt felt comfortable. Cant believe I had a major op on Thursday and now I am home.- Bloody amazing how the body works at healing itself. I must say I do feel wary of my scars, at the moment I am frightened to touch them, feel they may burst open, worried when I sneeze, I also feel numb in places, particularly under my arm. Apparently they took my right breast along with 2 nodes. They took my left breast but did not go digging for the nodes in this breast but some came away with the breast, dont know how many. Probably get used to the numbness as time goes on or maybe it will come back, who knows.
All in all, I have surprised myself at how positive I have been through all of this (I just wonder when will the downers arrive !)
I have also got to say that this site has been invaluable to me, I have found it so comforting in the early hours of the mornings when I could not sleep and feeling alone with my disease. I have got some fantastic friends who have stood by me throughout. Everyone has been so kind. I do appreciate your messages Dot, Angie and Tanya and thank you for your kind thoughts. I was able to receive your messages when I was in hospital and they reassured me no end. I looked forward to looking at the site to see if anyone had left me a message. Just need to build myself up now.
I’m still doing my exercises Angie as often as I remember and do feel I have got good movement, dont feel too restricted.
Tanya
I did leave hospital with my softies in place, and I did feel pressure on my chest. Would you advise that I wear these for seromas? What is a seroma? Hope your chemo goes ok Tanya. That may be my next treatment, dont know yet till I see BCN on 15 Oct when I will get all the details from the cancer. Let me know how you go Tanya.
lots of love to everyone. Angela xx
Thank you for your message Karen, I am sorry I did not mention you in my last posting but I read the postings on tuesday night and wrote up my account and just posted it this a.m without looking to see if I had any more. Thank you for your good wishes. I may need to talk to you at some point regarding your recon. At the moment, like Vertangie, I have no desire to have recon. I may feel differently in the future. There are so many things that can go wrong. I sometimes think, I am 51, who the hell am I trying to impress, maybe just be glad that I am here with my falsies. This may change in the future as I do not have a partner and I suppose that it worries me that I probably never will have looking like this. If you don’t mind me asking Karen, how old are you? and do you have a partner who is supportive?
lots of love Karen. Angela xx
Hi Ang
Glad your home and doing well. I know what you mean about the strange sensation of the drains being removed. I had a reminder of this again the other week.
I am 41 now and yes i have a partner who has been very supportive, telling me i look beautifull even with the bald head and no eyebrows. His words after my mastectomy were, that he loves me for who i am and that it wouldn’t make any difference to him if i had decided not to have reconstruction. We have been together now for 5 1/2 years now and i am looking forward to having my recon finished so that we can go abroad and have the wedding that we planned to do before this happened. My wedding outfit to consist of a bikini top.
You have to do what is right for you. Don’t think about others and what they think. We have gone through this and i can say that i don’t hide away from it, not from anyone. After my mastectomy i was still wearing my vest tops etc…even though i looked flat and very lobsided. The main this is; We are still here.
Keep up with the excercises and keep positive. Your doin great
Love Karen
Great to hear you are home Angela,enjoy being home and get plenty rest.
Love
Dot
xxx
Hi Ang - great to hear you are home and back on-line. Wishing you a speedy recovery. In answer to your question seromas are pockets of fluid that build up below the wound after the drains are removed, however it doesn’t affect everyone and you would probably have noticed them by now. Because my drains were removed on day 5 and they were still draining quite a lot some fluid collected around my wounds. The softies helped to press on the fluid so it would be reabsorbed but it doesnt sound as if this is relevant for you. I so quickly got used to the pressure of them and after a few days they were comfortable and I liked the shape that they gave me. Putting them on now is second nature for me but I also enjoy my time without them.
Like all the previous advice the exercises are crucial so keep up the good work 
With love
Tanya x
Welcome back Ang.
Glad to hear it’s all done. T (my other half) just told me to tell you that actually he’d still have chosen to go out with me even without boobs, truthfully it’s not the first thing people notice and some people prefer bums and legs anyway (Not going into personal details here. I’ve just been told by a few blokes that they don’t actually care for breasts particularly).
As for iron my mum had it all ready for me by the time I got home. Send the lovely daughter out for some spatone. It’s just water from a spa in wales but it’s loaded with iron naturally and doesn’t cause constipation (however anaesthetic really does so I’d also recommend eating a couple of dried figs each day too as they’re loaded with calcium and vitc too) if you mix the spatone in with some fruit juice you find that you get more benefit from the iron (as you need vit C to absorb it) and the fruit juice also helps get things moving again. So 2 small glasses of fruit juice with the a spa tone in each and you’ll be feeling 1000% better in a few days, I did this and it really worked, in fact I’ve done it through chemo too, failed to on the last round (complacency) and found I’m slightly anaemic all of a sudden (chemo’s not great for being healthy, not a surprise I’m sure).
Try to do a little of the excercises a few times a day, if there’s any strain stop and just stretch a little and try again later. The trick seems to be to extend the muscles in the arms a little at a time, big steps will lead to pain not progress so I just id the stretches a little about 6 times a day and within a week had full mobility back most of the time but then I keep forgetting that I did have the magic homeopathic surgical mix, I know most people on these forums do not believe in Homeopathy but the funny thing is they’re sugar pills not a religion so faith is not required LOL.
All I know is I made a so called miraculous recovery according to the nurses and doctors and according to my mum it was … of course, why do you think you were taking the pills LOL.
Anyway I think they do still believe in iron so go get some spa tone
Lots of love and stay in touch, Oh yeah as for when you’ll feel low it’s gonna take at least a week for the anaesthetic to leave the body and it has a habit of making even grown men weep like babies (especially when their recently anaesthesised wives are tickling them for their sarcastic remarks).
Wish I’d thought of the sex change idea, that would have been much more fun. I could have carried that off for a while as I’m a geek and a tomboy, they might have believed me for a day or two.
Hi Everyone
Karen - you are so lucky having a supportive partner. He sounds delightful, and how lovely to be getting married to such a nich man. Presumably you had arranged your wedding and then found the BC. That is so terrible. When and where are you planning to get married Karen and did you have to re-pick your Wedding dress. I hope you have a fantastic time, it must be lovely to look forward to something happy now after all you have been through. I agree with your comment ‘We are still here’ and we have the scars to prove it. Thank you for your reassurance and I will take your advice and keep up the exercises. I have discovered a seroma now under my arm, which again is so strange. I can feel it, but its numb, and at the same time it feels painful. I think I may start wearing my bra, like Tanya suggests, the pressure of the bra may help reduce the seroma. We must stay positive Karen. All the best to you and yours. Would love to hear about your wedding. Luv Angela x
Dot - Thank you for your comment. What did you have done and when? luv Angela x
Tanya - thanks for your reply and your good wishes. I think I now know what a seroma is! I have one under my arm. Its such an odd feeling, I can feel it but its numb but at the same time painful. I think I may take your advice and start wearing my bra, (if I can bear to get it on) maybe the pressure of it may help the seroma to re-absorb. Luv Angela x
Vertangie - Thank you for your comments, what a lovely fella you have. Maybe not all fellas are the same, maybe some fellas are caring. You and Karen certainly seem to have good ones. Maybe there is hope for me yet. I know you say some fellas prefer bum and legs but quite honestly Angie, mine are not very good either…lol…dont have much going for me really that is in the way of a good body, maybe my cheek may see me through. I thought my boobs were good at one time, but hey ho they turned out not to be, just like the fellas I pick…Anyway enough of that, I will try the Spa tone, presumably I will get it from my local health shop. It will probably will come in handy in the future too, if it turns out I need chemo, which I am expecting.
I am having weepy moments at the moment Ang, particularly when its shower/bath time, when I can’t move where I want because of this damn nerve pain runing down my leg and also cos of the low Hb which makes me feel out of breath. Sometimes I feel I have done 10 rounds with Mike Tyson. I find I need to keep resting. I feel that all I am doing at the moment is eating and sleeping, (not even drinking, cos gone off the wine…but I am having Guiness or Mackeson shandies to try and build up my iron) to try and repair my body. Think I should try and get out for a short walk (take my deck chair with me for resting periods!) and get some fresh air. Lots of love Vertangie. Angela x
Hi All,
best wishes for a quick recovery and healing.
I am still on chemo at the mo. A question I have, keeps running through my head, after chemo I will need an op. I want full mx even if I had a choice. but the thought is should I ask for double mx and get rid even tho no cancer is in second boob.I am 51 and do not ever want to go through this again. Dont even think I want recon. as this may pose probs in future. How the heck do you make such decisions?? I wonder if the onc would refuse to take a good one off??? whose choice would it be?
decisons decision s…
brain cant make them…
take care
Chris x
Hi Angela,
Weepy moments are normal ,its hard to see your new shape and the scars.I don’t love my new boob yet but I do like it better than the alternative.It takes time so be kind to yourself and don’t overdo things.
I had R mastectomy and LD recon on 23rd July,it is all settling down now ,just my emotions/depression left to fix!
Love and hugs,
Dot
x
hi to all you wonderful brave ladies out there,
I am 44 yrs old and was dx with bc in the right breast in 2004. I underwent masectomy and radiotherapy and a few mths later had my ovaries removed. Because my BC didnt show up on mammogram or us and my bx showed DCIS, I decided that i wanted to proceed with masectomy and thank god I did- thats when they found the 2 tumours(lumps I could feel) and pagets disease as well as widespread DCIS. Because of this I was petrified of developing it in the other side and knew that check mammograms etc would reassure me so a year later I underwent prophalactic masectomy to the left side with reconstruction using expanders. I was hugely relieved to be rid of this at risk breast, but the recon was painful, and on the side I had had radiotherapy, the expander had moved and was pushing under my armpit. I also had a blood clot on the lung and developed trunkal lymphodema when I had an infection around the expander.
As time went by, the expanders stayed in but where I had radiotherapy I developed a contracture around it, making it tight, smaller and pushing it further into my armpit. I have just had the expanders taken out 3 days ago, having made a decision to leave things be and now stay flat chested. If I have implants put in , they say I will be at risk of developing another contracture which will then need yet more surgery to remove. I cannot have any other recon because of the risk of having another blood clot (probably caused in the first place by the hosp not taking me off tamoxifen). I know that really I didn’t have any other choice but to do what I’ve done and here I am, flat as a pancake! I am so frightened about facing up to my new body image and know that still being alive is the most importanat thing. I have tears in my eyes when I read your brave stories, especially you ladies who are flat chested and not opted for recon. Please tell me it will all be ok- I’m sure when I can wear prosthesises I will feel better. When I was in hosp the other ladies in there were on their 4th/5th ops for recon to repair probs etc.- I just dont think I could cope with going through any more surgery and all the risks/complications involved.
You ladies , esp vertangie and puppydog1 have cheered me up no end- just feeling a bit sorry for myself at mo but prob due to anaesthetic still wearing off!
My best wishes to you all,
Anne XXXX
Hi Anne,
I have just typed in a new thread under chemo, decisions 1 mx or two. I have bc in my right boob and nodes involved too and although after my last chemo in nov 27th I will be planning for my mx. The question I have for myself is whether to opt for two mx and just get rid of another risk of poss bc in the future. I, like a few others dont think I want recon or any more surgery that is unnecessary after this. I am 51. I just want my life back and to be as risk free as I can make it. If I can have a fuller life flat chested then so be it, I (we) are so much more than a couple of boobs. Easy to say but I know what Ive said is true. Yes the girls on here are brill, there is always someone to help you sort things out. You will feel weepy after anaesthetic, apparently it takes approx one week to leave your body. Be kind to yourself now and rest,rest,rest. Give it time to heal, you’ve had a long old haul. I’m sure in time you will come to terms with your decision and even feel some relief that there is no more sh.t.
take care Anne
lots of hugs
Chris x