Hi everyone
My Mum is 96 tomorrow and has to undergo a mastectomy on Thursday. I’m so worried she won’t withstand the surgery at her age. Does anyone know of any ladies her age who have had surgery and how well they coped. She seems so frail, but is very independant and thinks she will be out of hospital by the weekend.
Any comments would be appreciated
Worrieddaughter1948
Gosh she does seem to be rather elderly for having a MX done but I guess the Drs wouldn’t be suggesting doing it if they felt it wasn’t worth it. Hopefully it will prolong her life. My Mum had a general anasthetic recently at 84 (different op) and although she is still very good for her age I have noticed that she seems a bit more muddled at times not sure if this is the opertion or just old age.
Hope all goes well for her
cheers
Caroline
Hi
My Mum had a mastectomy 3 weeks ago followed by another op for Lymph node removal last week and she is 78 - she has coped well with both ops so far but becomes very tired (no wonder!). The hospital were great with all her care and she only stayed in for one night for both ops. In the same ward was a lady of 85 who had a mastectomy and as far as I could see she coped well too and was up on her feet the following day.
Hope all goes well for you and your Mum.
Esbee x
I agree with the general feeling that the docs wouldn’t even think of putting your mum through surgery if they didn’t think she was up to it. You will find some people on this site talking about their mums only having minimal treatments if the medics don’t think they’re strong enough, so I would take a great deal of comfort from the fact that they are dealing with it in this way. I’m not saying it’ll be a walk in the park, as no general anaesthetic is easy, but I would definitely take heart.
If she’s been told she’ll be out by the weekend then that’s possible, but she and you should expect her to need a lot of support when she’s out, as the GA will take a while to get out of her system and she’ll probably be feeling pretty knackered. I hope you’re all able to have a lovely mother’s day, and if she protests about everyone running around after her when she comes out, you can tell her it’s your mother’s day present to her.
Very best of luck to your mum, and to you and her other supporters.
CM
x
Hi, a friend of mine had a mx in January at age 81. I couldn’t believe that they let her home the same day. She has recovered very well. Good luck to your mum.
Polly
I can understand why you’re worried. I used to be a nurse and I saw many women in their eighties and even nineties going through major surgery such as hip surgery. I remember nursing a lady in her nineties who had to have a cancerous kidney removed - she was very poorly for about a week and then picked up amazingly well.
Have you discussed your worries with the surgeon? It might be useful to do so for your peace of mind. You can do this by ringing the surgeon’s secretary and saying that you need to speak to him/her.
The other thing to say is that although it is quite a big operation I was reassured when I had mine by being told it was very routine - something they’ve done lots of.
I hope it all goes really well for your mum. Elinda x