Mastectomy the procedure

Well I am over 6 weeks out from having the procedure done and here is the good and bad and ugly.

The day before the procedure, I had to have a preprocedure done because there was a lymph node that had cancer. I had to go into the hospital and have a dye injected into my left breast. Then I was taking to radiology to get scanned. This is to “light up” the correct lymph node. This procedure took about an hour but most of it was waiting.

The next morning was go time for the mastectomy. The first order of business was getting hooked up. Also if you are under the age of 55 I think - they make you pee in a cup to make sure you are not pregnant. After getting charged and hooked up they took me back to radiology to get the wire inserted into the lymph node. When I came back it was time to talk with the doctors and get drawn on.

They took good care of me. Once I was giving the medication to relax I was out. I have some issues with anasesiology in the past so they were on top of that too.

I know I woke up in recovery but wasn’t fully aware until I was in the room.

Pain was unreal the first few hours. But they kept me medicated every 2 hours with something. The first time I had to pee - the pain was excruciating. You could not hold onto the bar to pull yourself up or to hold yourself when you were sitting down so your abs had to do the work and you were dragged out of your mind and you were in pain so it was not really all that fun.

I was discharged the next day and that first week I slept in the recliner. I had drains that needed to be cleaned every eight hours. I had pain pills every two hours. I couldn’t move my arms very much I had like Trex arms.

I wish I could say that I remember a lot of that week but being drugged pretty much 24 seven made it kind of impossible to remember everything. I do know that my husband was my lifesaver on my rock and he took really good care of me and so did my daughters. And we have some of the best neighbors and friends that were here to support us. I do know how lucky I am in that aspect.

As for the pain, you can just imagine having your breast amputated because that’s basically what a mastectomy is is having Your breast amputated because of the cancer. So some of the pain was real some of the pain was what an amputee would go through missing the breast. Some of it was just learning to deal with, not having that there, and having implants swen into your muscles and then being filled with saline to stretch out your skin.

I will say it was really hard emotionally to look in the mirror and see the scars. To a certain extent you feel deformed and ugly and lacking. And then for that first week or two you are completely helpless and dependent on someone.

It really takes an emotional toll on you and you think that the initial cancer shock was the worst, but it wasn’t for me.