Mastectomy- how long off work?

[LittenTree]

How long would you expect to be off work if you were a HCP, say, after having a mastectomy? If you'd been otherwise fit and well? And if your cancer was unlikely to have spread?

I have no idea whether it might be 2 weeks or 2 months!

There'd be other treatment of course, to take you off work, but if for no other reason, for ending that period of 'sick' at work before commencing the next one.

TIA

Litten go and ask on the tamoxifen thread as quite a few have had mastectomies...

at least two months if you want to avoid problems, you may need much longer, it's not predictable, both sides or just one?

what sort of work?

And if your cancer was unlikely to have spread?

until you have had the operation and they have looked at the lymph nodes how would they know?

here

Litten, MAS is right nip to Tamoxifen. Lots of us have had mastectomy on there - I've had two. Really not as bad as I was imagining, but lots depends on what you're having done/ future treatment, as few people get away with just an op. Also you can't underestimate the mental side. Not just losing a breast, but also the emotional hit of having being diagnosed with cancer.

Hi Litten, my Mom was back to driving the car and digging the allotment after around about 5 or 6 days. She had full lymph node dissection with it which caused the most problems but she was really fine pretty much straight away.

And she is 76 too :)

really Framey,

because the consultants all recommended at least eight weeks before driving, and to check with your insurance company because every one is different,

some insurance companies say you have to follow consultants advice, but some say three months. Was that in the UK?

and 5 to 6 days, you would of just had the tubes, out so one wrench on a wheel you may do yourself a whole lot of damage, also you are told not to lift anything that weigh more than a half bag of sugar,

so digging an allotment is quite dodgy , and running a high risk of getting lymphedema,

they are pretty strict at the breast care uint about it, I know quite a lot of people who have had mastectomies,lots of different hospitals, all of us were give the riot act on being very careful for quite some time.

Thanks for that info. The advice was apparently 'not to drive' for 6 weeks. I am not entirely sure of the extent of the surgery but I know it involved a complete mastectomy (which was requested) and some lymph node clearance.

smee- yes, I totally 'get' what you say about the emotional side. The person concerned is rather emotionally 'vulnerable' at the best of times. I am asking practical questions on here because when I ask her what she's been told, such as 'do you have an appointment to get the results of the histology on the tissue they removed?' or 'will they decide on which course of chemo and/or radiation depending on the histology findings or has that already been decided?' my friend looks away, shrugs, and says 'I dunno'. No chance she'll be digging allotments within the week- we're just hoping she'll be able to reduce her dose of Valium and Pinot Grigio to manageable and safe levels over the next couple of weeks.

I am hoping that if I have a bit of a handle on a likely set of scenarios, I can 'support' her better. We will be better placed to help her if we know what's likely to lie ahead as I know that, though everyone is an individual, etc etc, treatment regimes follow pretty similar trajectories according to what grade and type of cancer you have. Or have had if the mastectomy has removed it all.

Litten, some people just don't want to know, which I suppose is their way through. I was forensic about needing to know, so the opposite end of the scale!

I'd be amazed if she hasn't already been told what the most likely treatment plan is. They always say that they won't know exactly until they have the full post op histology is through though. Is she having node clearance/ sentinel node? That's something which makes the op harder to recover from as it's sore and means they have to cut through far more nerve/ muscles.

I'd guess, it's op, then maybe a week wait for follow up/ results appt. That's when she'll be told the full picture and what they'd recommend, so chemo, rads and if she's eligible for hormone therapy (so Tamoxifen +/or Heceptin). It's unlikely she won't have anything following the op, as they don't do mastectomy unless there's a real threat, so I'd guess Rads at the very least, and if it's in her nodes, or wide spread/ aggressive, then chemo too. How old is she, as if pre-menopausal it's most likely aggressive, so they tend to through everything at it.

After my first mastectomy I was walking my son to school after a couple of days and fine round the house. I worked pretty much all the way through treatment, but I do work from home so that made a massive difference.

yes quoteunquote, really.
her drains fell out the first night at home.
She heard the advice about driving etc but she FELT fine so she just went with it.

I know everyone's different but just trying to tell the op that not everyone takes 2 months to recover.

smee she's 50. TBH I'm not exactly sure how much node removal she's had, though there was 'some'. The breast clinic investigations revealed a tumour and 'some other areas of concern' so I think she may have had more than one focus? She herself asked for a full mastectomy as she'd never sleep again if there was any possibility there'd be a single cancer cell left. She actually wanted a bilateral one. Luckily (!) she's actually OK about the mastectomy, it's the hair loss of chemo she's really worried about.

She has complex psychology. Dare I say there is no doubt a tiny element of portraying 'what does it matter about follow ups? I'm as good as dead anyway'. She thinks her surgeon was lying to her when he said he felt she was 'eminently treatable', that there were no 'unexpected findings' at all during surgery, that he feels that it's slow growing (FNAB cytology at the Breast Clinic visit), that it's 'very unlikely to have spread', hence no need for a CT scan or Bone scan. So I actually think she does know what happens next, it's just that she prefers, right now, to appear to be a bit 'tragic'. Please don't misunderstand me- she is a good friend and I shall stand by her all the way but experience has taught me that we all get further, in the spirit of open disclosure, thence discussion, if I can pre-empt some of the 'Who knows? No one tells me anything/ I am a cork in the turbulent ocean of events' shrug with some facts I now know to 'move things along' a bit. Apart from anything else, it allows me to plan the tag-team hand-holding required from several middle-aged women with families who are lining up to help- and my friend wants the help, she is (naturally) clinging onto us, but it'd sure be easier to help if we knew what might lay ahead, in terms of timing and locations, her DD's back to uni etc.

Neither of us are complete beginners in the field of cancer, as we are both HCPs and have both performed mammography ourselves in the past. Which further reinforces my feeling that she ought to get to know what happens when. I'm like you, I'd want to know in forensic detail, but, as yet, sadly my friend appears to want to drown in 'I know I'm dying of breast cancer' thoughts rather than lining up the facts, iyswim. She won't (can't!) go on line for support, complete techno-phobe, nor will she contact any of the counselling services as 'she's not ready yet' (so I won't get found out on here!). I think she really needs some counselling to help her perspectivise what's happened, but she hasn't 'processed' her DH walking out several years ago, yet, either.

framey- yes, I'd imagine that since my friend stated in good health she should make a reasonably quick physical recovery. I need to help encourage her to see this as a serious vicissitude on life's highway rather than an insurmountable road-block. She knows as well as anyone she has to go back to work one day, luckily she'll have 6 months full pay, but if she doesn't she loses her home, too.

I really apologise if I am sounding glib and unsupportive. I'm not at all, I am just keen to try and prevent becoming an 'enabler' to dark, dark thoughts, unsupported by the actual 'facts' as she/we currently understand them. This could all end rather badly. She is currently fixating on the 'fact' her errant DH 'caused' her to get cancer as a result of the stress of his leaving, 5 years ago.

I wish she'd either tell me or find out when the f/u to her surgery is- because that, presumably, will be the meeting where 'what happens next' will be fashioned. Of course, she doesn't have to tell me anything, but she's smart enough to know that my support will be robust and practical (as well as emotional, but 5 years of trying to get her to see her marriage is over has failed, so I can't be that good!) and that it'll be very hard to go on being as supportive as possible without any clues or roadmap of where she's heading!

There is no 'good person' for cancer to happen to, I know that, but she may be among the worst. I was hoping that post mastectomy (17 days from breast clinic to surgery) she might try and see herself as 'cancer free' with some belt'n'braces thrown in (chemo +/- radiation) but if anything, without the actual hysteria that occurred between the BC visit and the cytology report, she's as down now as then.

Well her odds sound pretty good to me, but it's a hell of a shock at diagnosis and to be fair to her the waiting is the hardest part, as you just can't trust anything anymore. Even when I had clear scans, I didn't believe them and I'm pretty robust and pragmatic by nature, but my first thought was that I would die. Took me an age to accept that I probably wouldn't.

Does humour help her? Definitely helped me. The friends who would acknowledge the idea of death and who made the darkest jokes were best for me. We kind of got it all out of the way, then found a way to laugh if that makes sense. Platitudes and sympathy used to make me want to scream.

OP, I know this isnt what you're asking, but I m=am not sure from your posts that you are i a position to be a good friend to this person right now. Noone in my family has ever been faced with cancer, but even I can see that many survivors of breast cancer will have seriousemotional and psychological issues to deal with. You do sound a little heartless, sorry.

Just got in from a visit to see her. She was 'in better spirits' at least talking the talk ('whatever this is I have to take each day as it comes') if not quite walking the walk ('I'm going to die, aren't I?') but more of the former, less of the latter. A definite improvement. And her DC were very happy to see someone else there to help support mum!

Good.

Heartless. Hmm. Not sure if I could realistically be described as that BUT you'd maybe need to define exactly what you mean by 'heartless'. I definitely am 'heartless' if you mean I am increasingly unwilling to collude with a destructive, nihilistic frame of mind that can only see disease and death as the consequence of breast cancer and, please bear in mind, 5 years of ignored advice and support regarding the finality of a marriage that ended 5 years ago that forms the backdrop of my views. My friend certainly does have 'serious and emotional issues' BUT you need to bear in mind, as I think I have already described, hers do go beyond normal spectrum. Am I heartless not to support her view that her long-gone DH caused this cancer? Should I have yes 'Yes, you might be right, maybe everything the docs have said ARE lies, maybe you have weeks to live, like you, from time to time, appear to believe'? (before I make you list exactly what the experts have said, like, er, the facts we currently know to refute that) ...Would that have made me appear less heartless? Maybe I'm not 'the best friend' but there ain't no auditions!

smee what event did make you feel that maybe you would survive? If you don't mind me asking!