There is no prep you can do before surgery in terms of exercising the arm. I take it you are concerned with the nodes surgery giving you cording later on? It does go away eventually. Its kind of like if you hurt your back slightly and then the whole muscle mass back there goes over board and pulls tight not allowing you to stress the area again. It will settle down. It takes time and yes after the node surgery you will need to exercise. A physio specialist or even your breast nurse will see you and tell you what you can and cannot do in terms of exercising. The main achievement will be that you can lift your arm up above your head. It will be tight and like a back injury it will take a while to come good but it does, have no fear of that.
My hospital assured me my stay, subject to no complications, would be only overnight and I could go home the next day. For me this was true but the silly hospital rang my mobile number which my husband had the phone and he'd turned it off and forgot to turn it back on. Mental hospital mind block, they could have rang the house phone. I had taken my laptop to hospital with me, so I slowly unpacked it (your movement is limited after surgery) and got on to a face book friend and told her, ring hubby, I can come home. She rang him and he came in to get me.
Main thing to take is a button down the front shirt as you will have to display the surgery area multiple times to Dr and nurses checking its ok. It was a long way from my room to the car on discharge so get an orderly to line up a wheel chair to help. You are ok toddling to the bathroom but your energy will leave you for anything much longer for a while.
