I was told 3 weeks for a bilateral skin sparing mastectomy and tissue expander reconstruction. This was almost fully inflated and a dermal sling was used so the implant was contained. It looked great from the start and healed really quickly. However...it was far more than 3 weeks. 3 weeks for just a mastectomy bilateral maybe but after 5 weeks I still couldn't sleep and was in quite a lot of pain requiring round the clock pain killers and eventually lyrica due to nerve pain from my sentinal node biopsy. I ended up finding more info on American sites where these procedures are done more often and they said allow 6 weeks. I was considering at 5 weeks ringing the surgeon and begging for removal. But then magically at 5.5 weeks it was suddenly comfortable and the pain just stopped.
I was very weak in the arms initially having both sides of the chest wall cut. Driving wasn't an option at all. In fact my husband did the cooking as I couldn't stand that long due to upper back pain from the stretching. I also (just to add to my joy ) unfortunately hurt my back in hospital due to being stuck on my back for 4 days as was nauseated, vomiting and couldn't keep down pain killers. So moving like a tortoise on my back out it went.
Sorry. I'm hoping you'll breeze through but have a back up plan and don't feel disappointed with yourself if you are not ready for working in 2 weeks.
I'm having my expanders changed over in 3 weeks time and was told I would need 3 weeks off just for this. I am hoping I can at least manage this in 2 as it has all been stretched already and the cuts will be minor in comparison to the first. But I have a back up plan in case I'm not ready.
Kath x
