Officially cancer free!

 I didn't want to make anyone wade through a post to get to the big news. I saw my oncologist today, the surgery was successful, they got everything, and I'm officially cancer free!

I will still be doing radiation, I'll still get my ovaries out, I'll still be on hormone therapy for years to come, but I'm feeling good.

Surgery recovery update: I get a little less sore every day. My range of motion is still a bit limited, and I've got cording in my right arm. I saw my occupational therapist today, she's confident I'll be where I need to be to start radiation in a few weeks (I do not know when I'm officially starting radiation, but my consult is in early January), and we're going to be working on the cording between now and then. This involves a very gentle massage to loosen up the cords, and I'm still taking it pretty easy. Very gentle, limited stretches, shoulder rolls, just making sure the right shoulder (which is the tightest and sorest) doesn't freeze. 

I'm feeling better than I've felt in months and months. Maybe since my initial mammogram. It's really great. And I stopped by the infusion center (everything is in the same hospital) to share the good news with the team that helped me through chemo. Just a great day. 

Edited 1/15/26 to add: I didn't include this at the time but finding out that I had to have another surgery (for ovaries) and get an infusion for three years REALLY bummed me out. It just felt like finding out that there was a whole wing of a building that I hadn't known about that I now had to navigate. They don't tell you all the things you'll have to do at the very beginning so they don't overwhelm you, I guess? Or maybe things might change depend on how your treatment goes. But it felt devastating in the moment to have more things added on to all of the things I was already prepared to do. It was fine, ultimately! But that moment of "are you kidding me? more? I have to do even more?" was hard. So hard that I think I just left it out of the blog because it was too upsetting to be honest about at the time. 

Feeling it today

At my appointment yesterday, the surgeon mentioned that some people do really well the first couple of weeks after surgery and then feel worse in weeks three to six, because of the healing process and nerves, etc. I am finding this to be the case! I'm certainly not as uncomfortable moment to moment now that the drains are out, but the holes where they were removed are still in the process of healing up and it looks like someone stabbed me with a pencil. This is exactly as gross as it sounds. They will, apparently, close up in a few days. 

I think that in the time immediately after surgery, there's so much going on with a body that you can't really focus on where or what specifically is hurting. There's also a lot of adrenaline sort of powering you through. Now that the drains are out and the saniderm wrap (it looks like saran wrap and they put it over the whole site so you don't have to deal with dressings, which is awesome) is off, I'm able to focus on which parts of my body hurt. It's still not terrible. It's manageable with tylenol or ibuprofen at this point. It's just interesting to see the evolution of this healing process. 

It's hard to describe these sensations, but it's a little like when your whole body is cold, and you get a little numb, and then only when you start to warm back up does that coldness become painful. This is kind of (but not really) how I'm feeling, if that makes sense.

My energy level is still great (I have been warned not to overdo it because I'll go from feeling really good to feeling like I have made mistakes) and I'm not having a bad time, I'm just feeling what I've been through a little more than I was able to when I was still coming off of the initial surgery. 

Drains are out, hooray

I'm a little sore but I'm very happy to not have drains attached to me anymore! I still need to take it easy, but everything's looking good, and I'll continue to heal up over the coming weeks.

Edited to add 1/16/26: They said the drain holes would close up within a few days and this was NOT true. It took weeks. It wasn't a big deal, but because I had been told one number and it wasn't that number, I got really worried about it. There was nothing to worry about. It just takes time for tissue to fill in the holes from the drains, and you just need to keep those areas clean in the meantime. 

The various aches and pains of mastectomy and axillary lymph node dissection

 Recovery has gone smoothly, all things considered! The pain has been very manageable (I haven't even taken anything for it since the first couple of days), the drains are very manageable (though I am still hoping to get them out soon, as having drains in means that any jostling is uncomfortable), and there's tightness in various places but it's something I'm getting used to. I have some cording, which is very normal for this surgery, and I've got an appointment with my occupational therapist this week and I know she'll have some exercises for me to do to help resolve it. 

The armpit where the lymph nodes were removed is sore and also numb in various places, so I tend to try to keep my arm away from my body so I'm not putting pressure on that area. It's also swollen, which is to be expected. This is probably the most painful part of my body right now. My chest is doing pretty well (again, areas of numbness), I have an appointment with my surgeon tomorrow so hopefully things will be looking good and healing well. I can't see anything, since the incisions are covered with steristrips, which look like strips of duct tape. 

Cording, for those who don't know, is a thing that happens to a lot of people who have breast surgery, particularly when lymph nodes are involved. It looks and feels like cords under the skin, and it can be painful and restrict movement. Basically there are stretches and exercises and specific massages that therapists can do to help break up the cords, which are then reabsorbed by the body. It's grosser to think about than it is to experience, honestly. When I read about cording back at the beginning of the whole cancer process, I though "oh no, that sounds super stressful and weird and hard to experience." At this point? It's just another thing. It's not a big deal, it's actually helpful for me to know that the pain from cording isn't important, if that makes sense. It doesn't mean anything is wrong, it doesn't mean that there's any damage being done, it's just this weird body thing! 

Until I meet with my various medical specialists, I'm just continuing to stay active (but not too active). Lots of walking, moving within the range I'm allowed to protect healing, just continuing to live my life. There are some fleeting pains, but most of the time I feel pretty good. I feel like myself. My energy level is pretty much back to normal, which is a huge relief after all those months of chemo. 

Edited to add 1/17/26: I forgot to mention that during the surgery they ended up removing 27 lymph nodes! Apparently in this case, they just scoop some out and they don't know how many they're getting, then they check to see if there's any cancer (there was not). This is not what I was told to expect (by someone not on the surgeon's team). I thought they'd somehow make the three affected lymph nodes stand out and only take those. No. That's not a thing in this case! This increases my risk of lymphedema, so I was happy to later do a lymphedema teach session with the OT who specializes in lymphatic massage. So far no problems but it's have compression gloves and a sleeve just in case that ever changes and I don't get shots or blood draws in that arm.

Surgery recovery update

 I'm doing well! I'm off of all medication at this point, and it's going well. The hardest part is if I change levels (so sitting up after lying down, standing up after sitting, stuff like that) because the blood rushes to different parts of my body and the surgical sites ache and the drains remain incredibly annoying. They did an axillary lymph node dissection, which is the technical term for "scooped out some tissue from my armpit to check the lymph nodes for cancer," and this means that that area of my body is sore in some places and completely numb in others due to nerve damage. My upper arm on that side is also simultaneously numb in places and very sore. I feel what are called "zingers" in the surgical sites on my chest, which I think are related to nerve stuff, or general healing? I'm not sure. I know it's normal, but it feels incredibly weird. They are basically sharp, shooting pains, they don't happen too often and they go away super fast, they're just very surprising.

Every morning and every night, I empty the surgical drains and record the amount of liquid in them. I am hopeful that by the time I have my follow-up (next Monday), they will be ready to come out. 

I'm doing my best to rest (it's boring), and I can go for walks, but otherwise I'm taking it easy for now. It's going well, and my energy level is great, especially considering surgery was just over a week ago. 

first weekend after surgery

Last night, I had some wine and watched some Christmas movies on streaming services (standouts: "A Timeless Christmas," in which a workaholic from 1903 winds a magic clock, is brought to the future, and learns the true meaning of Christmas, and "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" in which sci fi favs Tricia Helfer and Eric Mabius are mayors of two halves of a town that definitely is operating without a city council or any governmental oversight and they, too, somehow learn the true meaning of Christmas via a holiday decorating contest to impress a candle company). I'm getting better at managing the drains, and the output is decreasing (which is good. I want it to be very low by the time I go back for my office visit so I can get them taken out). I'm feeling pretty good, getting used to the weird muscle twitches in the surgery sites. I like the way it looks. It's never something I would have done without it being necessary, but I think it looks nice, and my hair is (sort of) growing back, and I can finally see what my partner has been saying this whole time (which is that I'm still cute, I'm still going to be cute). It's nice. It's going well. It's different, but I'm happy with it. 

This body is adjusting

 There is a psychological queasiness that comes with surgery, for me. I don't really like to think about the mechanics of bodies, or the ways that systems connect and interrelate. I like just existing. I enjoy being in the world, in this body. Surgery forces me to reckon with the flesh, and I do not care for it!

This is all to say that there have been some muscle twitches below the surgery site, and sometimes I wonder if they're even real. It's very normal, I have medication to control them, but it feels profoundly strange. It's not even painful, just unsettling. I expect them to intensify as the healing process continues. 

With this particular surgery, the body wants to protect the surgical site. The impulse in the system is to draw in, hunch over, curl up. You can't do it, though, or things will connect in ways that you don't want. So I'm trying to be mindful about keeping my shoulders back, keeping my posture straight, basically doing the things my occupational therapist had my practice ahead of time. It requires effort, but it does feel better than hunching over (so that's good. it reinforces the posture I need to maintain). 

I sleep well. For everything that's happened, bodywise, it's easy to find comfortable positions and then settle in. 

The biggest challenge is resting. I don't like watching television or playing video games during traditional work hours, and in this particular recover process, it would actually be a great time to do those thing. I'm going to try today. Or I'll do laundry. Or I'll do both.