(January 7, 2018 at 5:33 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:(January 7, 2018 at 5:11 pm)Clueless Morgan Wrote: My surgery was definitely less intense than yours: I had a double mastectomy without reconstruction so no muscles were cut aside from removing the fascia. My recovery is mostly my skin healing back to itself and waiting for range of motion to come back.
I was on enough antibiotics to give me some gnarly diarrhea though, and I have quite a bit of nausea day to day, but I'm not bed ridden or anything. I have a bit of muscle fatigue too, and I'm trying to work it out by going for walks add much as I can but with this being Oregon it's rainy out and waking on a treadmill isn't the same.
The hardest part of my recovery is the anxiety right now. As long as I was in chemo I felt like I was doing something proactive, I had major anxiety pre-surgery because I've never done anything like that before and I have issues regarding bodily integrity, and now I'm in this weird limbo with the question of radiation so out there and questions about the future lingering.
Uh, I need to go eat something or take a nausea pill... I'll try the former first.
I ordered some probiotics to combat the effects of the antibiotics on my stomach, but they don't get here until tomorrow. I recently got some bananas and fiber bars to help with the poop situation.
I can certainly understand and empathize with the anxiety. We really need to trust that we are in good hands with our doctor, and it's hard to feel like we are not in total control.
My mother in law had a double mastectomy several years back but got a reconstruction all in the same surgery. She was in a world of pain because the muscle had to stretch for the implant underneath. Do you plan on doing a reconstruction at any point?
No reconstruction for me, and if radiation actually happens one reconstruction option will be of the table (implants) because my skin will lose its elasticity. I'd have to do fat grafts if I did reconstruction.
It's easiest to do reconstruction at the same time as the mastectomy - only one surgery to remove tissue and do the inserts for the expanders.
Teenaged X-Files obsession + Bermuda Triangle episode + Self-led school research project = Atheist.