Hi Gemma,
I just had a mastectomy and LD recon last Monday and came home from hospital on Sunday and like you am overwhelmed with how I feel. Recovering from childbirth was a walk in the park!!! I have had other surgeries under general but they were gynae and didn’t result in big incisions, drains etc etc. I had posted on here before the op about how I was unphased by having cancer and the prospect of the op and, as my name here suggests was probably being a bit naieve and now I know I was. I don’t know if it would have helped to have been more prepared and I probably would have been totally terrified sat in the hospital rather than the bright bubbly person I was waiting to be told to pop on my stockings and away we go!
I had my last 2 drains out today which is a relief but I still feel incredibly vulnerable and fragile. My new boob is huge and heavy, my back is killing me (I think with the other muscles in my back are working hard to make up for the lack of that one), my boob keeps contracting (v odd!). I haven’t slept more than 2 hours in a row at a time cos I either can’t get comfy or get comfy and my body refuses to move through subconcious fear of something giving way and I wake up in agony 2 hours later when my joints can’t cope any longer and I have to move, I am absolutely knackered, I’m afraid to cough, sneeze etc, don’t even ask me about my bowels (never saw that coming!) and I feel as weak as a kitten.
Oddly having my drains out didn’t hurt, being injected in the tummy every day to stop me getting a clot did, lots!
Aside from the physical impact psychologically I am suffering. The realisation of what lies before me and how long it may take if I have to have chemo and radio etc before I feel like “me” again is reducing me to tears several times a day. The realisation that the chances of me being able to go back to front line police duties in the near future are slim (I have to pass a physical test to show I can wrestle people to the floor, handcuff them, hit them with my stick etc) is too much. The realisation that whilst it may be sometime before I feel physically able to have sex with my husband again it may be a while longer before I can undress in front of him and feel desirable is even worse.
My other huge realisation this last week is that this thing will be with me for life. I will have to declare it on life insurance policies. I can’t give blood from the arm where they took my lymph nodes again (if they would want my blood) let alone have my blood pressure taken from it etc. I may beat it this time but it will always be a part of my life either as part of my past or part of my future.
Sounds pretty awful me thinks re-reading this before I post but as well as the horrid stuff I wont forget I wont forget that on Sunday I climbed into my husband’s car to come home and looked out of the window at the beautiful afternoon sunshine as we drove home and shed lots of silent tears for how beautiful a day it was and how very very very very glad I am to be alive.
Oh yes, and as my wise 10 year old pointed out to me, me and her Dad are old so we can’t possibly have been having sex as often as say my 20 year old daughter so it isn’t that big a loss if I don’t feel sexy! She then went on to say that when I do undress for her Dad I now have this super flexi boob that I can flaunt at him - a selling point I had been unable to see up until then.
I have cried more in the past week than in the 6 weeks since my diagnosis but I am really really trying to learn now to stop and smell the roses and take it one day at a time.