Preventative Mastectomy

I had bilateral mastectomy and recon.  i spent 6 days in hospital after the surgery.  I wasn't allowed to go home until the drains had been removed.  I was home for about 6 weeks to recover and started to go work from home for a couple of hours each day from about week 7/8.  I had terrible neck pain as I think I was hunching (trying to protect my chest) so this prevented me from catching the train/ sitting up for too long.

I went back in to work after 2 months.  You have to take it easy and my husband had to help me carry my laptop (I had to buy a wheelie bag as I wasn't comfortable using a backpack and didn't have the strength to carry the bag.

Key thing is to keep moving once you are back at home.  Go for daily walks, do your arm stretches every day.  I also started hydrotherapy/ aqua aerobics at the local hospital for people recovering from breast surgery about 2 months after the surgery.  I really enjoyed it.

Definitely buy lots of button up clothing (I really struggled to find clothes with buttons all the way down the front).  I couldn't get my hands over my heads so I had a limited wardrobe for about 2 months. 

lots of trashy magazines for the hospital, nothing that requires deep concentration.  As Debbie mentioned, the bags to carry your drains in is really handy.  My mum brought me something similar to the coles/ woolies bags which I carried around when I walked around the hospital.   

I got the 2 arm pillows from the breast nurse but found I didn't use them much whilst in hospital.  Found I used them most in the car when the seat belt goes across your chest.