Have you met the McGrath nurse Megan yet? She will give you a bag for your drains and a pillow for under your arm. Both vital pieces of equipment and made by local volunteers too.
My sentinel node biopsy after the mastectomy came back positive so I had to go in for a second op of an underarm axillary clearance to remove all the lymph nodes. The results all came back negative on those. Use caution when they build you up saying such things as we got it early and the sentinel node looks fine. Mine wasn't and I was totally unprepared for getting the results only a week after the first op and being already booked and sent immediately to register for pre-op on that day. I lost it.
All your surgeon appointments are in the outpatients clinic just near the breast screening clinic near the entrance to the general hospital. I had to find all these places as I had only just moved to Burrum Heads 6 months before. My first visit to a doctor yielded the breast cancer diagnosis.
After my two ops I had a few weeks break over Christmas/New year if you could call turning up to have the seroma swelling drained every week a break. BTW its like heaven when they do it. I do think all that stuff does make you a bit sick merging through your body and I always felt much better once it was gone.
The cancer clinic is across the road from the general hospital. Parking is free and usually not full so if you find the general one full, just park up the top near the road and walk across the round about to the outpatients clinic.
I like the cancer clinic better than the outpatients one as the staff seem more highly trained in politeness and don't hide behind glass partitions where you have to speak through a hole in the glass.
For your op, you will most likely have to start at St Stephens private hospital to get the radioactive dye injected so they can highlight the sentinel node. Mine was slow to circulate and took a few hours. I took my laptop with and the internet reception was good with my prepaid modem.
Then you go over to the waiting room for day surgery. My laptop worked there as well and my husband took it with him and my toiletries when I was called for the op.
You will wake up in your ward with a mouth as dry as chips. If you can get your foggy brain to work, don't slug down a whole glass of water straight up. Just sip a little. I'd had gas anaesthetic and we found I am allergic to it and that water came out faster than it went in and I ended up on an overnight drip with nausea meds.
The nurses are great and will unhook your drain bag from the bed and you can pop it in to that cloth bad the McGrath nurse gave you. The drip trolley unplugs and you have a half an hour before the battery back up sends off an alarm. You can wheel it to the bathroom for toileting. That trip is important as the nurses will mark you as self sustaining and that's one step closer to getting released. Don't overdo the walking though. Also make sure you eat some breakfast the next morning as holding that down is another step toward getting released.
In the public health system if you don't ask you don't get. After the first op I was sent home with no nausea meds and told to go and buy myself Panadol and Nurofen. Next time when I asked they gave me stronger Nurofen and a long acting pain killer and anti nausea meds.