can chemo start when you have had surgery
Hi I go to talk to them about my chemo on friday and i have my double mastectomy and reconstruction on the 23rd of march do they have to wait with the chemo till i have healed from the double mastect...
Forum Discussion
Hi Twilight,
You may still need chemo - depends on type of cancer and where it was. I had a mastectomy and reconstruction at end-November and started chemo about 6 weeks later. While they have cut out all of the breast tissue (and cancer - I had sentinel node biopsy and lymph nodes were clear), they still want to make sure there aren't any stray cells around. So I've had 12 weeks of taxol (which I'm still doing), then going to do 5 weeks of radiotherapy too. I had 3 small cancers, stage I.
The other issue I have had is the wound healing. About 6 weeks after the op, the wound reopened, had it stitched up and subsequently got some infection. So ended up back in surgery to get implant replaced. One of is the issue is that wounds just don't heal very well with chemo - so I ended up having a 2-week delay in the middle.
Anyway, hopefully your op and recovery goes better than mine. You are at the stage where you get information overload so make sure someone helps you sift through all the info, remembers to ask the questions you want and writes it all down. This forum is great for follow-up if you forget to ask anything. Good luck.