Post-lumpectomy drains

abrub said:

The drains are gone
The last one fell out on Friday. However, the incision is still actively draining.

Having been given dr's approval and encouragement to massage the hardness in my breast to encourage the draining, I've been hard at work, and will continue to do so, to see if I can speed things up. Hopefully, if I can release all of the internal pressure, the pain will subside. (My shrink - an MD, wasn't so certain when he heard that I'd massaged my breast, and it had "squirt". He made me promise to check what I was doing with my surgeon. She voted that I continue what I'm doing; that the "stuff" is "better out than in, I always say" (to quote both Dr. P and Shrek.) Funny, tho, Dr. P didn't realize that her comment to me was straight out of Shrek! We both got a kick out of that.

Thanks,
Alice

abrub said:

It's really a matter of healing
There is nothing to be seen. I just still feel the rawness inside my breast, and my incision still hurts.

I have a history of extreme and unusual reactions/responses to "attacks" on my body (surgical or chemo), so while all of this is uncommon, it follows my patterns.

My surgeon is also considered by virtually everyone in the Capital District to be the finest around. My drs at Memorial Sloan Kettering do know what is going on, and acknowledge that it is unusual, but see no reason for me to pursue it elsewhere (and believe me, if my MSK surgeon had any questions whatsoever, he'd arrange for me to be seeing a breast expert there.) I've been seeing this surgeon for over 10 years, tracking my cystic breasts. I was referred to her by one of the top ob/gyns in an 100 mile radius. People travel significant distances to see him. By the way, my ob/gyn also evaluated me, when I had to see him last week because my surgeon was out of the office, and I'd had a problem.

At this point in my life, I've had numerous surgeries, and it was the rare one that went according to the norm. Likewise, I had odd but serious side effects with my various chemos (systemic and intraperitoneal) - the chemo nurses at MSK commented that they'd never seen that before; my drs stated that while they'd heard of some of the side effects/problems I'd encountered, they'd never seen them before.

I've actually now had 3 days without taking pain meds; they haven't been entirely pain-free, but I haven't felt the necessity to take something. So it looks like I'm finally improving.

Tomorrow, I plan to try to curl - to throw a few stones just to see if I can do it. I'm told it won't harm me; it's simply a matter of my comfort, so it's worth a try. I'm supposed to be at a major curling tournament in Cleveland on the 28th, and I really don't want to miss it. (I'm missing a major tournament this weekend - had to drop off the team.)

Thank you for caring. If I'm not substantially better by the time I see my surgeon on Wednesday, I'll ask again if there are any other considerations.

Alice