Hi guys,
had my lumpectomy 3 days ago and wondered how everyone gets on with washing and showering afterwards, I’ve been glued and worried warm water will soften glue if I start showering too soon.
silly, I know, but I don’t want to impede any recovery. Also, with scarring under arm from snb has anyone used deodorant?
thanks
andrea
Hi Briggs,
I had my lumpectomy and SNB in late September. For the first 2 weeks I just ran a small tepid bath and sat in it with a face-cloth to wash my upper parts. Used a small plastic jug to tip water over me as well.
The wounds were really tender and stung badly if I got them wet. I’m not using deoderant.
Sometimes the arm on the affected side was very weak and I had to turn around and pull myself out of the bath on my front (hope this makes sense). Some days I was too weak to bathe at all.
Another hint if there is weak arm and getting out of the bath hard is to put the wet face-cloth on the side of the bath and the weak hand placed on that to keep it in place and hoist the body out.
Now I am on week 3 and able to bath immersed in water. The glue is dissolving now.
I’ve been doing my exercises and strength and mobility are coming back. I can now get myself in and out of the bath.
I’ve got a bit of a seroma under my arm and keeping an eye on that.
Hi
You need to keep the area dry for 2 weeks, so as said before, have a shallow bath and use a flannel. My daughter washed my hair for me over the bath! I used deodorant carefully.
After all my dressing was removed, I soaked in the bath for ages…never enjoyed it so much!!
Sue x