I was diagnosed on 3/12/18 and booked for surgery for lumpectomy and lymph node clearance on 8/1/19. On the 5/1/19 I was then diagnosed with shingles and surgery cancelled ?. Surgery was then carried out on 25/1/19 at Addenbrookes Cambridge .
Diagnosed as grade 3 metastic , oestrogen receptive with biopsy on one lymph node. Right breast tumour 7-9mm. Now at home recovery without referred community nurse care. I had to call 111 ( on Sunday) to be put in touch with community nurses as I had no idea what to do with a filling drain . The nurse visited on Sunday and showed me what to do , I have no idea when and if I will have another visit and the Breast unit have advised me to remove dressings on Thursday . OMG ? I am terrified , what if I don’t take them off correctly . Surely this is something a trained nurse needs to do . Any advice please would be really welcome
Hi - I was told to take my dressings off after a week -I had lumpectomy and SNB .All seemed pretty well healed just very bruised .I saw the surgeon 2 weeks after the op for a follow up .If you have any worries after removing your dressings ring the breast unit for advice .
sorry to hear of the problem you have had recently, I hope things improve for you. I had two operations, because the first didn’t result in clear margins.
After the first, I was told to remove the dressings after 10 days. I was scared, too, so made an appointment with the nurse at the GP surgery (it doesn’t hurt to make sure someone there knows what you are going through, as the letters can take a while to catch up). It really wasn’t as bad as I expected, and I managed to take the dressings off myself, the 2nd time. You might want to have some baby oil or similar available afterwards to make sure all of the sticky residue comes off easily, though.
At the worst, you could possibly leave the dressings on until your follow up appointment, as I know some people have done that.