I had a lumpectomy on my leaft breast on 19 July with reconstruction. At first follow-up appointment on 15 August I found there was no spread to lymph nodes which was fantastic but they found the wound had opened up and infected so had to be taken back into hospital straight away for debridement surgery. I was stitched up with stich removal on 25 August. I was allergic to the dressing they used so had to get medication for that but went to the GP yesterday as was worried as one area under my breast is still not healed and leaking. Thet said the the wound is probably infected so on antibiotics but really don’t want to get to the stage where I have to have furher cleaning out surgery. I have returned to work today (and am already pooped) and have Oncologist appointment a week today to discuss the next stage which will be Radiotherapy but really worried treatment won’t start anytime soon because of issues with the wound. Anyone else had this problem and any advice on how to make my wound behave itself and heal properly!!!
I am not able to help you with regard to your wound problems, but I wanted to make sure that your post was acknowledged.
As part of yoru appointment your oncologist will want to check out your breast in terms of the healing process prior to rads starting. Sounds like you are doing everything you can to help the healing process having been to the GP and got antibiotics.
Fiona, You are not alone. I had my lumpectomy on the 9th of August, 8 days later told it was doing well. On the 20th I found some leakage, and went to the hospital the following day. I was given antibiotics and sent home. I kind of wish they had done the cleaning you had done. On the 22nd I had a fever, and on the 23rd there was lots of pus. On the 24th they doubled the antibiotics, and on the 25th the district nurse visited and she removed a huge volume of liquid and pus. Long story short, I now have a Pico Vacuum assisted dressing, with dressing changes twice weekly. It’s more comfortable, but I have been told that this will take MONTHS to heal, and my onc appointment is tomorrow. The only positive is that it has taken my mind off the cancer.
Effectively, the Pico dressing keeps the wound open while sucking the gunk up from the bottom. Marginally more pain in the wound site, but much more movement in my body as I no longer worry about the wound opening and leaking. I have heard that they don’t do rads on unhealed surgeries, but will have more info tomorrow. I don’t know if I am having chemo at this stage, as I get that decision tomorrow, too.
It is quite isolating, as everyone else is moving on, and I (we) seem to have been left behind!
Thanks for your helpful response. When I went for my cleaning surgery I was given a Pico Vacuum assisted dressing to take into the operating theatre with me but when they cleaned it out they decided it wasn’t required - perhaps not the right decison in hindsight lol!!! The wound looks a lot better today and wasn’t leaking when my partner changed the dressing first thing this morning and I’ve only been taking the antibiotics since Monday afternoon so going to give it a chance to heal itself rather than pestering the staff at the hospital. I wasn’t sure where to post my issue because as you say most people are moving on and it was difficult to find the right forum. I hope your appointment goes well today and please let me know how you get on x
Hi lovely ladies. I had the same issue after a therapeutic mammoplasty. In hindsight I kept bleeding on the ward the day of surgery and they just kept sticking pressure dressings on, I wish I had asked more questions then. However mine was a little different in that it was failure of blood vessels at the incision sight and so the skin died. Eventually after trying iodine and silver dressing I had 2 Pico dressings. One on each part. I had the surgery on 29/2/16 And had chemo delayed until the end of the 12 week window of maximum effectiveness. I started chemo on 12/5/16 And still had an open wound. I developed cellulitis after my first cycle and was in hospital for a week. They changed the chemo regime and I had my last one on 7/8/16. Radiotherapy was then delayed until the wound had fully healed so didn’t start until Christmas ?. Have just had my matching surgery and had a Prevena on which is the same but has a canister for the removed fluids to go into. No problem at all this time. In total it was 9 months healing but had 2 months of remaining the same whilst on chemo. Hang in there it does get better. Has the Pico alarmed a lot? Xx