Things You May Want to Know For After a Mastectomy (a list for patients and caregivers)

I started this post a few weeks after my surgery and decided to finish it up today. Some of it is information I really wish I wish I had known.

Bathroom issues:

Assistance—I didn't need someone to assist me in the bathroom. I needed someone to help me get out of the bed because I wasn't allowed to push myself up with my arms. Being pulled up by your arms is also painful, so the best thing seemed to be someone pushing from behind my shoulders. My abs got quite a workout. Your assistant also needs to hang around to make sure you don't fall over in a drug-induced stupor and to help you back in bed.

Toilet Paper—it needs to be in reach. What is easy to reach before surgery is not so easy to reach afterwards. Oh, and tearing off the proper amount can be painful. Those little perforations between the sheets of tissue suddenly get amazingly strong.

Laxatives—take them. The effect of the pain medications is way stronger than the effect of the antibiotic. Keep taking them until you've ramped down the pain medications. If the nurses won't let you take some from home, request them if you are in the hospital for any length of time.

Washing up—Reaching for the faucets to turn on the water is painful. The push-in-the-lever soap dispensers at the hospital are really painful because you have to reach and push at the same time. At home, move the soap dish to near the edge of the sink so you can grab the soap without passing out from pain. The same goes for the hand towel. It will hurt to bend and reach forward to rinse your hands. Have plenty of hand sanitizer around.

Drink lots of water—it will help the laxatives, and will flush out your system so you don't get an infection after the catheter. Plus, if someone asks if you have been up at all today, you can talk about all the times you got up to go to the bathroom.

Wound dressing supplies:

Gauze bandages—my plastic surgeon recommended I buy two boxes of 4”x4” gauze bandages and a tube of Neosporin. I would recommend doubling that amount. Make sure you have them on hand because the drug store shelves can be mysteriously empty of things like that when you really need them. Other sizes of pads are useful for providing extra padding on sore spots where your compression bra rubs or to provide extra compression under the bra if needed.

Scissors—have a sharp pair and sterilize them the best you can. My drain tubes were the most painful part of the dressing process, and cutting a slit into a gauze pad and putting the tube in the slit (to have gauze all the way around the tube) helped me be more comfortable.

Alcohol wipes—we used these to clean the spouts of the “grenades” each time we emptied them, and for other general clean up purposes.

Sleeping:

Location: I had to sleep on the couch at first—the bed just wasn't comfortable. My husband bought me a wedge pillow that was a 45 degree slope. Laying flat was just too uncomfortable.

Pillows: I had a LOT of them. My favorites were the therapy pillows—the tube shaped ones with micro-beads in them, and a neck pillow with the same filling. You need pillows that you can squish to form where you need them.

Sleepwear: I bought some double front-closure hospital gowns online (pretty pink floral ones) for right out of the hospital. They were easy on, easy off and I didn't mind anything that got on them. I pinned my drains right to them and didn't worry about pin marks, etc. Plus, when you are wandering around in a hospital gown you remember that you aren't supposed to be doing much of anything besides healing.

Position: If you are a stomach sleeper (I am) you are out of luck for several weeks. More than six weeks out, I still can't sleep on my stomach.