1. As you are probably aware, emotional and psychological pain can sometimes hurt even worse than physical pain. With that in mind, you will want to have a support group standing behind you before surgery and after as well. For example, there may be a friend that you have in mind right now who has already gone through breast surgery. She will probably be a great comfort to you at this time in your life.

2. After breast cancer surgery you may experience a sense of imbalance in your body. In time your body will adjust. A physical therapist can help you regain as much movement as possible. He or she can suggest special exercises to help work out the stiffness and help you to feel better physically after surgery.

3. If you have lymph nodes removed, the affected arm may swell from time to time. So avoid wearing tight clothing or bracelets.

4. Use the arm that has not been involved in your mastectomy or partial mastectomy to carry heavy items.

5. After surgery you will want any medical procedures to be done on your stronger arm. For example, receive injections and have your blood pressure taken on the arm that has not been involved in your surgery.

6. For heavy-duty cleaning or gardening use protective gloves. If your arm is swelling, you’ll feel worse having it scratched by thorns from your rose bushes.

7. Protect your skin against sunburn. A swollen sunburned arm can cause a great deal of misery!

8. Be especially careful not to cut yourself when you trim your nails or cuticles.

9. Purchase an elastic sleeve to wear on your arm if it swells.

10. Protect yourself from being bit by mosquitoes and other insects.

11. Your arm may bother you if you have lymph nodes removed, so be sure to consult with your doctor if your arm should bother you.

12. Be very careful to avoid junk foods and eat healthy foods to give your body the nourishment it needs.

By putting these 12 tips into practice after you have had breast cancer surgery, you will help yourself feel better and avoid needless extra suffering.

Author: Patricia Wagner
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Electric Pressure Cooker

The above photograph is of my wife, Linda, while she was in chemotherapy for breast cancer. I am also a recent cancer survivor. We wanted to share this photograph with you.  During our illnesses, both Linda and I found solace in photography. Our work can be found at MOONBIRD HILL ARTS: www.moonbirdhill.exposuremanager.com/

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Chris and Linda are both passionate photographers who are unique in their vision and specialties in photography. Linda offers Fine Art Photography, Farm and Ranch Photography, Fine Equestrian and Event photography, and Portraits of People and/or Pets. Chris offers beautiful Painted Photographs, Art Photos With Text, Americana, Architecture, and Rural Landscape.

We originally met as nurse and patient years ago. Then we started seeing each other at our kids sporting events. As multiple sclerosis took its toll on my body, I had to put my RN career on hold.  With the nurse/patient relationship no longer an awkward barrier, we started hanging out. Soon, we were undoubtedly the oddest looking pair in town.

For two years, three days a week, we’d rise in the dark, get our children off to school, then meet at day break for breakfast at a local coffee shop. There, we would solve world problems, discuss local politics, giggle and gossip.

Our presence was always  met with stares, often with shock and occasionally pity.  Deb, just thirty years old, was losing her long battle with breast cancer. She was bloated by steroids, pale and pasty from radiation and bald from chemo. I was also young, pale, gaunt and weak, riding an electric wheelchair or  dragging my body around with lofstrand crutches. Yet, we found each other hilarious and a welcome break from all the stress emotionally, mentally and physically that illness can bring.

New Hampshire’s cold wintry holidays had just passed and we were in the midst of a winter thaw. My buddy and I were leaving the restaurant, after a heady discussion on the trip we were about to take when suddenly, Deb ducked behind me. 

“Quick, hide me. There’s my mother.”

I giggled and shielded her from view. It wasn’t that Deb disliked her  mother. She just didn’t want to divulge where we were headed lest the woman dissolve into tears. Moms are like that when their daughters are dying. 

For the past few months I had been driving us around town as Deb reluctantly agreed that her driving days were past. The cancer that began in her breast six years ago and seemingly been in remission had now accelerated rapidly to include bone, lung and brain. Some days she didn’t even know me. Within three months she had declined from doing town errands and driving to being cared for. I had noticed the shortened attention span, brief episodes of cognitive impairment and confusion even before she had been informed of brain metastasis. With that new diagnosis came a grave prognosis. It wasn’t until today and our previous conversation in the restaurant that Deb was prepared to deal with end of life issues.

“Thank-you for helping me with this,” Deb said as I pulled the van into the church’s parking lot.

“That’s what friends are for,” I said hoarsely.

We met the assistant pastor just as he was about to enter his own vehicle.

“Oh, we were just coming to talk with you,” I said approaching him, leaving Deb to struggle from the van alone.

“Can it wait, Diana?’ he asked “I’m kind of in a hurry.” then he paused and saw my friend stagger forward. He knew us well, both being active members in his congregation, but he was clearly surprised at my friend’s rapid physical decline. “What do you need help with, Deb?”

“My funeral,” she said, bluntly. There was an awkward silence.

He shut the car door and led us into the rectory. We sat across from him. Slowly, painstakingly, details were worked out. Deb seemed even more confused and detached than an hour before. I reminded her of the Bible readings she selected and songs that she desired to be sung at the service.

The reverend’s eyes were glistening when he said, “I have seen many things, have heard many stories in this office, but never have I seen the bravery and support of two greater friends. You both are vessels filled with the Holy Spirit.

With my nursing background, pastoral care visits to the homebound, hospital visitations and grief counseling experience, you would think that the parting with  my friend would have been smooth and graceful. It wasn’t.

I was subject to sudden bursts of anger towards God, feelings of inadequacy for not being able to help with her physical cares, deep depression and an impending sense of doom and gloom. Our relationship was built upon facing illness head on with mocking irreverence and strength in victory over evil.

But now, we were battle weary. I was losing a beautiful, wonderful friend in the worst way possible. For the first time, I was being phony to Deb—smiling and cheerful to her face and sobbing uncontrollably on the way home.

When I told her that in spirit she would always be around to watch her kids grow-up and that love is eternal and never dies, it sounded rehearsed and hollow. When she would whisper, “I love you so very much.”  My tears would start. She would be visibly pained at my struggle. Then she’d try to reassure me with, “I will miss you.”  During a particular intense exchange, I asked Deb if just once in awhile she would look down on me from heaven and help me on this life journey. With this request, my now blind Deb turned her head towards my voice and with perfectly focused eyes looked straight at me and replied, “No!”

Then we both started laughing. Soon, we both began to sob. After a while I tried again, “Please?”

“No,” she teased. And so we went off again. Laughter was our signature through sickness, funeral arrangements and end stage blindness.

I wish I could say that Deb won her battle with breast cancer, but she didn’t. I struggled for acceptance after her passing. It was when I noticed that daybreak brought a smile with the memory of Deb that I finally found peace, again.

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Award winning author Diana M. Amadeo sports a bit of pride in having 450 publications with her byline in books, anthologies, magazines and newspapers.  Yet, she humbly, persistently, tweaks and rewrites her thousand or so rejections with eternal hope that they may yet see the light of day.

Yesterday was her mother’s mastectomy. 
Right breast pruned in an act
of preservation.  Needle biopsies
and radiation no longer an option, they took
the grape size lump and 5.35 pounds of tissue.

Rebecca, her hands wrapped around
her glass, watches out the window at blue skies
untainted by even the slightest cloud.

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Carolyn Helmberger is a native of Omaha, Nebraska.  She received her MFA from the University of Nebraska.  She currently works at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and continues to write poetry, her true love.

It is the New Year and I am thrilled to finally have hair again!  For months, I was a complete skinhead.  Then for the next couple of months, I had fuzz.  Finally, I looked like a Marine.  A Marine with an enviable Brazilian wax job.  It was an odd combo, no two ways about it.  Now, I can finally put product in my hair and almost style it!  I do not wish to sound ungrateful in any way, shape or form for the fabulous hair explosion, however, having said that – let’s just put the brakes on here a little bit.  Now I have to call my insurance company to see if it will cover some hair removal costs.  You heard me right.  Before I start my new circus career as the bearded lady, I need to see what can be done.  Is this a test?  Is God giggling right now?  Perhaps it is His little kick in the kiester to get me writing again.  Well . . . it worked didn’t it?

I have had trouble writing for the last few months.  Cancer is a thief – a thief of so many things.  A thief of time, identity, my brain, my ability to focus on anything other than myself.  I have simply not been fully present for my family or my friends or so many things that used to hold such importance for me.  I can’t get away from it.  It’s not that I didn’t know logically that cancer was all around me – but now I see it everywhere I go.  It’s as if I bought the “Cancer Car”.  Now, I see them everywhere.  Every other person is driving one.  The tricky part is that none of us knows which custom package we purchased.  Did we buy the extended warranty?  Am I a Volvo with hundreds of thousands of good miles left on me, or am I a Pinto . . . just waiting for that next rear-ender to cause an explosion?  Apparently I didn’t get air conditioning in my model.  Those hot flashes sure are super, good fun though.  Also, they give you a nice rosy glow.  When I am in the midst of one, I feel a bit like a praying mantis.  I might just bite the head off of the next person who has the misfortune of speaking to me.  On the bright side, my kid’s reflexes have gotten really fast.  They are all crazy, wicked good at dodge ball now.

I used to wonder, as a parent, if any of my constant nagging and pushing was getting through to my children.  Now that I haven’t had the energy to be a truly effective nagger, I see that some of it did work.  On the up side, they have all been forced to grow up a little, and become a bit more self-sufficient.  On the down side, their grades reflect my lack of interest.  I feel badly about that, however, I try not to beat myself up about it too much.  They will all be fine ultimately, with or without my nagging.  (And perhaps with some years of therapy)

My surgery was almost nine weeks ago now.  Everything went well.  They were able to do reconstructive surgery at the same time and I must say that I am pleased with the results.  I am in physical therapy now, and there is steady improvement in my mobility.  Once I can get my left arm up over my head and hold it in that position, we will start the next phase.  Radiation.  I haven’t really even focused on it yet.  My surgeon says that I have done all the hard parts.  She says that radiation is a cakewalk after chemo and surgery.  That’s good.  I could use some cake.  Is there such a thing as a “pie-walk”?  I like pie even better.  You know what I really like . . . biscuits and gravy.  When I finish radiation, I think I’ll have a piece of cake AND a piece of pie AAAAANNNNND, smother it all in gravy!  I’ll just have to be carful to keep it out of my beard.

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Stacy Toyon is a full time mother of three beautiful children.  She is a big time cancer fighter with the help of her husband, family, and a plethora of fabulous friends.