Mastectomy with immediate DIEP reconstruction - week by week recovery please!!

Hi, I can’t offer you a week by week recovery as the memory is a funny thing, you forget fast! My diep was in Jan 2022. Week 1, tough, no getting past that I’m afraid, week 2, very hard but noticeable improvements, by week 3 I’m pretty sure I was walking straight but still carefully, my mum left after I had been out of hospital 2 weeks and I had a 12 year old and dog to look after. I had considerable help from friends but I did manage ok, I remember it being hard to load the dishwasher and put things in the oven for a few weeks and in the beginning you’re very careful about movements. I returned to full time work in a primary school after 12 weeks and was ok to do that. The first few weeks your tummy feels really tight and obviously it’s major surgery, and you feel like it, but you do recover fast and I’ve never regretted having it done. My advice would be, prep well with home cooked food in the freezer to minimise standing time, get ‘scaffolding’ to support you in your everyday life, like getting a friend to change your bedding, getting your child (if pertinent) dropped and picked up from school so you can have a slower start in the morning, getting a cleaner for a few weeks (if you don’t have one) and be prepared that the first 3/4 weeks are difficult, after that I seemed to recover pretty fast. That said everyone is different, I know one lady who went out to a restaurant a week after the op! I still had drains in a week after and I’d have never managed that at all (and I’m not sure it’s the norm!) my consultant said I had a pretty good recovery so I think I’m probably average. It’s horribly daunting and I remember being really scared, but like everything on this crap rude we’re on, you just seem to get through it, and then 2 years later the details are fuzzy! All the best to you x