Today is officially two weeks since my partial mastectomy (lumpectomy), so I thought I should post an update. Following the advice of my surgeon, I’ve done my best to refrain from moving my right shoulder for the past five days. I’ve kept my right arm in a sling except when I needed to work (on my computer) and when I was sleeping. I think it helped a lot. I’m definitely experiencing less pain than when I last updated you all five days ago. Today I went without the sling and tried using my arm more. If the pain worsens, I’ll put the sling back on and stop using my arm again, but I wanted to try. I’m so ready for my body to be back to normal. I know it won’t last, since I have more treatments to go, but I’m ready for a break from the pain.
While I am feeling a good bit better, there is still pain and the numbness hasn’t changed. I’m still wearing my surgical chest binder with balled up washcloths padding the incisions. I take breaks from it a couple times a day (usually once in the morning and once in the evening) but it’s otherwise on all the time, including overnight. And speaking of overnight, I’m still only sleeping on my left side or back throughout the night. The right side is still much too tender.
At home, I tend to go braless all the time because tight garments are very uncomfortable on my skin, so I’m really looking forward to being able to exist like that again sometime soon. Wearing the binder all the time helps reduce my pain from the surgery but causes my skin to feel really uncomfortable. When I’m without the binder, my breast starts to hurt from its own weight after a while because it pulls on the incisions and interior damage and stuff.
I took some updated photos of my incisions. Here are some comparative observations with the first photos I posted two days after surgery:
- They’re much more tightly framed than the first ones because Paul took those and I selfied these. 😆
- The surgical glue they used to close the incisions has picked up lots of I don’t know what — probably dead skin cells and lint and stuff. So much that it appears dark now instead of transparent.
- The surgical glue is starting to wear off and I can feel the incision scabs in a few places.
- This isn’t something that’s observable in the photos, but now that the swelling has settled down, I find it very easy to tell that my breasts are two different sizes. I’ll see if I can get a good (and appropriate for the public) photo of that at some point. I do think the left one was a smidge larger even before the surgery, but they were pretty evenly sized. They are definitely not anymore.
Next up is my medical oncologist appointment. It’s exactly one week from today on October 29. I am hopeful I’ll learn at that appointment whether the doc is recommending chemotherapy as part of my treatment or not. I haven’t enjoyed the limbo of not knowing because I can’t do anything to prepare right now. I’ve been trying to learn about it a little in the meantime, but if I knew for sure one way or the other, I could really commit to learning about it (or not). Doing things helps me cope.
I’ve taken to watching YouTube cancer videos in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep. I recently saw a video from a medical source that said that for seven days after chemo, anything you get bodily fluids on, you have to wash twice (including laundry). And your caregivers also have to be very careful not to get your bodily fluids on themselves because apparently the chemo can affect them. So, that sounds like hard work. Exciting! 🤦
Thanks for reading, friends! ❤️