Drain Free...Again!

My drains were removed at my appointment today.  Yay!!!

I told the nurse I really wanted them out and she obviously said something to the surgeon because he came in and said "so I hear there will be a rebellion if we don't take these drain out?"  I said "maybe..." so he said we might compromise and checked things out, and thought it looked good so he gave the ok to the nurse to take them out. 

On the down side (and this must be the compromise he mentioned) I have to wear my tightest breast binder (and make it tighter if possible) for another week.  This is to make sure the breast skin firmly "sticks" to the chest wall which will somehow make things better when we go in to replace the expanders, its also important to not have "pockets" because pockets have greater potential to stow away bacteria, which could hang out there until the expander goes in and then cause another infection!  I will do my best to follow his advise.. I did before too, but I am watching like a hawk!  I pointed out a tiny red spot ony incision I've been watching and he said it was fine it's just a little irritated by the stitch that is there.  He said if I have any fluid build up to call and they'll get me in right away and its really easy to just use a needle and draw it out.  Otherwise, I will see him again Friday.  This is 1 week since my surgery to remove my expanders and 4 weeks tomorrow since my mastectomy, this will be the longest I've gone between appointments.   Having the drains out makes me a little nervous, but I'm on major antibiotics and I don't have any foreign body in me we need to hang on to, but man, I just imagine I will be super nervous when I have expanders again.

Anyway.. I should be drain free for a couple months now.   And I am happy to say that removing them this time was no where near as unpleasant as I anticipated it being.  I hardly felt it.  Unfortunately it didn't improve my arm/underarm discomfort as much as I thought it would, but it did help a little.  I guess these are going to be things that take time to resolve.  Once everything is done I will request a referral for physical therapy if It's not fully back to normal by then.

I took a nap on the couch today and got up without much difficulty.  I think tomorrow I will return to sleeping in bed, probably until the next surgery.

Happy Halloween!