I had my right sided mastectomy on 19th, with an expandable implant fitted immediately (in a deflated state). I only found out, just before they put me to sleep, that they were going ahead with immediate reconstruction - which was a relief I didn’t get time to process. Three lymph nodes were also removed for biopsy.
I woke up really uncomfortable but with not too much pain and the next few days in hospital passed in a blur of oral morphine. I unfortunately had another post op chest infection, but was able to shake it off with some physiotherapy, mobilising early and the IV antibiotics helped. They give them prophylactically to all implant patients as infection is so dangerous with a foreign body in situ. I had a pressure dressing covering half my chest, and two drains fitted, to drain off the seroma fluid which could compete for space with the implant, and I couldn’t go home until they were producing less than 30ml in 24 hours. Unfortunately one of the nurses messed up and so I had to spend another day in hospital (total 6 days) but no harm came to me. Once the drains were out and I was allowed to go home, I had to be strictly resting for 6 weeks- no driving, no housework, no walking more than a few minutes, sleep propped up and wear a sports bra 24/7.
Two weeks later, the plastic surgery team breast care nurse finally removed my pressure dressing. I discovered I had contact dermatitis from the glue! I looked like I had chicken pox and it was so itchy. I couldn’t wait to get back from the hospital to clean up and apply hydrocortisone cream! Unfortunately my skin in the breast crease, where my bra elastic rested, was so sore it felt burnt. I had to stuff handkerchiefs under the band until a fellow cancer fighter suggested I wore a soft vest *under* my bra, which was crazy but really worked! After two weeks I cracked and bought a bigger bra to accommodate the swelling.
As for my mastectomy wounds, all I had was a thin line of delicate stitches where my nipple used to be. They’d even used the same incision to remove the sentinel lymph nodes from my armpit, so that was it, and with the implant and swelling it looked like a normal breast. The actual implant felt odd under my skin - I could feel the relatively hard edges and the little button under my skin where the inflation port was (later that will be injected with saline to fill the implant up), and sometimes it seemed to move about when I walked - a very odd sensation.
I spent the first couple of weeks at home sleeping a lot, with very little energy for anything, and trying to manage on over the counter pain relief, but it wasn’t easy. I had terrible constipation from the morphine so wanted to avoid opiates from then on, which was hard. I had to explain to quite a few friends and loved ones that this was actually completely normal for someone recovering from their second major surgery in a matter of weeks to be so fatigued! I would basically wake, go to the toilet, drink some tea, go downstairs to fetch the post and then sleep for another two hours. I couldn’t even follow the plot of a TV show and everything exhausted me. At night, I got worried a lot and even had a nightmare that my new breast exploded!
