Emotional

Sorry this happened to you too.  It seems to be a huge emotional rollercoaster ride.

I was recently diagnosed also and had a single right mastectomy almost two weeks ago.  I asked the surgeon to do a bilateral because I was worried about the costmetic look of a single but he would not do it.  His reasoning was that I would recover more quickly from a single and I needed to get to chemo and radio as quickly as possible.  Costmetics will come later.  I was more devastated about that than the idea of the operation.  I've come to accept it quite quickly though.  After the mastectomy, I was actually really glad I only had one because it was/is enough to deal with physically.  Not sure if you are having all the lymph out too but that underarm area is mighty sore and it's good to have a comfortable opposite arm to be able to do things. I was disappointed as well when I was told I won't be a candidate for reconstruction for two years because of the extensive nature of my scar and the chance of recurrence there.  Oh well.  I'm alive and have a pretty good chance of staying that way.  

I felt grief over the idea of losing my breast too, but the funny thing was that when I came out of the aneastetic I cried with relief that the cancer was gone not with grief over the breast.  The scar takes some adjustment but only two weeks later and I can look at it and I don't think it's that bad.  It's not something I feel that I have to hide from my husband or family.  They love me not my breast.  

Take care of yourself.  I found it helpful to have some treats planned in the lead-up to surgery.  It helped distract me and I found I could have a few nice days doing things where I wasn't crying all the time.  One day my husband took me to Australia Zoo for the day - just the two of us.  I like taking photos  so I spent all day on my camera and now I have a disc full of raw photos that I can work on at times when I'm not feeling strong enough for other things.  Another day I spent at the beach because I wanted to float in the ocean while I could still wear a bathing suit comfortably.  By the way, since then I've seen the beautiful range of swimsuits you can buy that will take a prosthetic breast and I think in a few months I'll be floating in the ocean again.   I am constantly amazed by how many women that I speak to who tell me they have the same thing.  We are not alone.  There seems to be a crowd of us out there.  

Take care and just get through the surgery.  It feels a lot better on the other side.  :)