HI Zebbardy,

A very warm welcome to our forum.

I am sorry to hear that you have to have all of your armpit nodes removed on Tuesday. I have had 2 bouts of breast cancer and have only had 6 nodes removed. I had a lumpectomy first time around and a double mastectomy for the second bout. That was all 15 years ago now and I still lead a busy and fulfilling life. In the interim, I have spent a lot of time on this forum and know that there are a number of people, who have had to return to get all of their underarm lymph nodes removed post-surgery. I hope that some of them will come along to chat with you soon. In the meantime, you could search by entering some key words in the search forum box at the top of this page. I have just entered "Removal of all underarm lymph nodes" and there are 1,810 results.

I shall be thinking of you on Tuesday and hope that all goes well for you. Please keep in touch and let us know how you get on. We are always here for you.

Kind regards,

Jolamine xx

Hi Jolamine

many thanks for reaching out to Mr I am happy to read that you are fully recovered from cancer. It's a horrible disease did you have chemotherapy? what was your diagnosis

many thanks again x

HI Zebbardy,

I didn't have chemo. Pathology said that my margins weren't clear, but my surgeon insisted that he had noticed this at the time and had removed more tissue. When I had pre cancerous lesions in my other breast 6 months later, then a second cancer in the original breast, less than a year later, I sometimes wonder!

I had stage 1, Pure Mucinous Cancer and was meant to have radiotherapy, but with delays in getting a diagnosis for the other problems, it was 11 months before they were ready to proceed with this. By then, I was advised by two researchers in radiotherapy, that it wouldn't be worth doing, due to the time lapse. I had a double mastectomy instead. Are you going to have chemo?

Jolamine xx

Hi Jolamine

Many thanks for your response, I have stage 2 and I do not know if I am having chemo I would far prefer radio. You have properly been through the mill haven't you, did you have a reconstruction?

Hi Zebbardy,

Unfortunately, I wasn't a suitable candidate for reconstruction, due to scarring from other non-cancer related surgery. I have also stopped breathing on the operating table before and now have to have a fibre-optic naso-gastric tube inserted before any surgery. I also have to remain awake until I swallow any camera, without coughing - never an easy thing to do. There was also concern that I might not tolerate a lengthy surgery involving reconstruction. As a result of all this, I have remained flat, but I manage fairly well with an assortment of prostheses for various activities.

I shall be thinking of you tomorrow and hope that all goes well.

Jolamine xx

Hello 

I had full auxiliary clearance all nodes removed as a second operation that was 3 years ago operation went well only thing I had drains fir two weeks and this drive me mad , then I had a lot of fluid build up after a few weeks of drain being removed but all in all it’s a smooth operation nothing to worry about xx good luck take care xx