Operation after chemo - tips

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Hello, my mum is having a single mastectomy soon - do you have any advice for how she can prepare her body? She’s fatigued from chemo with some neuropathy. Any advice to make recovery better much appreciated. Thanks 

  • Hi Anon89 

    Thank you for getting in touch with us and welcome to the online community. My name is Lynsay and I am one of the Information nurses with Macmillan Cancer Support.

    That is a really good question. Chemotherapy can be really fatiguing, and we want your mum going into surgery feeling as well as possible.

    Focussing on eating well and staying active can help in the preparation for surgery and will also help in the recovery following chemotherapy. Mental wellbeing is also an important part of preparing for treatment .

    Preparing for surgery is often referred to as prehabilitation and some hospitals now offer a prehabilitation programme prior to treatment. This is not currently available everywhere but there are resources you can access with guidance around prehabilitation.

    If your mum has lost some weight during chemotherapy, it can be helpful to try and regain some of this weight. We have a guide to healthy eating and cancer, we also have a building up diet to increase calorie intake if that would be beneficial. However, prior to making dietary changes it is important to first discuss this with the GP or hospital team.

    In relation to physical activity, how much activity and what kind of activity your mum can do will completely depend on your mums currently level of activity and whether she has any other health conditions resulting in mobility problems.

    If you mum currently goes for a walk each day for example, gradually increasing the length of this walk will increase activity levels. Again, as with dietary advice we would always advise speaking to either the GP or hospital team prior to undertaking increased activity.

    Eating well and being active can also help to improve the fatigue your mum is experiencing following chemotherapy. However, this can be a bit of a balance as some activity can be good, but too much can sometimes increase the level of fatigue she may be feeling. Keeping a fatigue dairy can be really helpful to monitor the gradual improvements in this.

    Mental wellbeing is also an important part of preparing for surgery. Chemotherapy can be really challenging physically but can also be draining emotionally. It is not unusual for people to feel like their emotions are all over the place. It can also be really helpful to have a space where your mum can talk through any worries or fears she may have.

    There are supports available and these could potentially provide a really positive experience for your mum. We have 4 sessions of telephone counselling support available. It may be really helpfully to have a session like this prior to further treatment. Breast cancer now also offer various kinds of emotional support, again this can be really helpful for both preparation and recovery.

    You also mentioned you mum has experience some neuropathy, so I have added our information about this here.

    I hope this helps. Please feel free to get back in touch if you need more information or support. 

    All the best 

    Lynsay 

    Cancer Information Nurse Specialist  

    You can also speak with the Macmillan Support Line team of experts. Phone free on 0808 808 0000 (7 days a week, 8am-8pm) or send us an email.  

    Ref  JH

  • Thank you, that’s really helpful. I’m not sure she’s up to exercise but will focus on diet