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Robot-assisted Nipple Sparing Mastectomy (NSM): My recovery journey
Breast Cancer | Last Active: Oct 23 9:05am | Replies (13)Comment receiving replies
I had my two week follow up Wednesday. The hardest part was traveling. That took a lot out of me. Since my pathology was clear I have graduated from Oncology and have been turned over solely to plastics. The worst of the pain was week two outside of travel. I have developed a hatred of I 35 north of KcMo both directions suck. Probably just avoid Missouri in general after any type of surgery. I'm pretty sure some of our roads haven't been updated since the Roman empire.
The tagaderm dressing was removed at my appointment. It left some marks on the skin surface that are fading. It felt so amazing to have that removed.
The pain has subsided to more like discomfort. It's a tight, burning pulled muscle sensation. I can start gentle range of motion exercises, otherwise no activity more strenuous than watching tv or reading and two walks a day around the block.
I have sensation in my breast. Its very faint in the nipple area limited to pressure and movement. The rest of the breast skin I can feel hot and cold and touch.
Nerve damage feels like what I experienced in the past with broken foot and sciatica. It feels like i have a string tied around both breast. There is a feeling of a gap between the skin and the body. Im at the point where touch causes discomfort. It feels almost like electricity, vibration. I learned from my broken foot you have to keep working at tolerating touch after nerve damage. I try and touch them while I'm showering. I have found salonpas herbal pain relief patches very helpful. I put them on the front of my shoulders before bed. I tried lidocaine patches but they irritated the skin.
I still have some swelling that needs to go down. I can transition to a sports bra with light compression. Unfortunately only one of my current bras fit. The compression bras they sent home don't prevent jiggling. I'm sure I will appreciate the natural look of some breast jiggle later. It's definitely not fun right now. I'm going to attempt a trip to Vs/pink to try on sports bras.
I love my surgery team at Mayo. My breast look amazing. My oncology nurse said they looked like textbook examples of reconstruction. Its funny the difference between the disciplines. Oncology is like this is amazing we are so thrilled and plastic is like meh we see how they look in 3 months.
Initially I thought I would need fat grafting to balance differences in shape and size between my right and left. Unless one drops significantly more then tje other or nipples cave in I'm pretty happy with my results. I really liked my breast before surgery and was super worried they wouldn't look nice. Totally not the case. I think they look better than prior to surgery.
If you can have your surgery at the Mayo clinic do it.
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Hi Amber,
I am a 53 year old female and have a CHEK2 gene mutation, extremely dense breasts & I’ve had right breast LCIS lumpectomy in Feb ‘23. This year I’ve had 4 biopsies & 5 3D mammos and MRI’s. The biopsies of suspicious imaging are always on the same right breast—nothing ever in left breast. Biopsy results of right breast keep coming back as ALH since Feb of this year. I have had nipple issues, swelling, pain in right breast which has been of concern since April and is also driving the worry and concern up. I am newly established UTSW (Dallas) patient and was referred to a premiere doc who specializes in the clinical trial robotic mastectomy. I met with her yesterday. I really like her. She was supportive of my imaging and biopsy fatigue and anxiety concerns. She thinks I might be ready to have a double mastectomy with reconstruction. I’m aldo considering going flat? She referred me to a plastic surgeon at UTSW. I’ll meet ASAP with him to discuss all the scary, gory details about double mastectomy with reconstruction. I am told he will go over all the different types of reconstruction possibilities—I know this is about to be a crash course of information.
My concern is the ALH that they keep finding could possibly be accompanying a lurking, still hidden cancer. There is that possibility, or also could be that the dense breast tissue is a hiding place until the next time, or the next time after that.
My question to those fighting their battle is whether their cancer first presented as LCIS or ALH? Did anyone go into an operation without confirmed cancer and wake up to find that there was cancer in the breast tissue after all?
I’m so afraid to just continue with the close surveillance plan and have the possibility of letting cancer grow and spread in my body until we can get a confirmed biopsy sample of it. I have this nagging worry that cancer is there—or should I say I have a STRONG INTUITION about it. Is anyone grappling with these same questions/thoughts/feelings? The total preoccupation and worry is starting to wear me down. Met my internist who suggested an anti depressant called Pristique that has been found to help with slight depression and a desirable decrease in the frequency of murderous HOT FLASHES and night sweats that plague me every night. I’ve been taking 10mg tamoxifen as hormone blocker since Feb ‘23. I’m just out of sorts and not my usual self. Sometimes I’m really angry about my situation and other times, I just want to stay curled up in my robe in bed all day or break down and cry because I don’t know how to pick the right thing for me to do.
Any opinion whether anyone has experienced this or tried these meds and could give me feedback and list any questions I should ask the plastic surgeon with my consult?
I don’t know if it’s rational for me to do double mastectomy—it is such a big surgery that has so many layers and steps. This worries me that I’ll regret doing something and having an awful experience or complications that cause many doctors visits and loads of money. I just want to be healthy and be there for my 17 year old daughter.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.