[2023-07-14] Recovery day 7
After wrestling myself into a sports bra yesterday, with the help of my super supportive husband, I announced after lunchtime today that I could no longer stand it. The bra felt too tight. So the acrobatics we did yesterday to get into the bra, we had to do again today to get out of it, only in reverse.
As an alternative, I put on one of my daughter's sports bras, a design that hooks up in the back (like a more traditional bra). Not only was it easier to get into, but it was also more comfortable, being just ever so slightly bigger than the bra I wore yesterday and more easily adjusted. I felt immediate relief, while still enjoying the support that a bra provides. For added softness, I tucked a silk scarf between the bra band and my incisions.
The occasional steely stabbies have been replaced by intermittent tingling, of an intensity similar to that of Pop Rocks. So very tolerable. Nevertheless, I continue to take Tylenol and Advil around the clock, keeping an eye on the time so that I can take the medication as soon as four hours have passed. Even though I'm not in tremendous pain, I continue to experience discomfort.
Today marks one week since my surgery. Though I have weeks of recovery still ahead, I'm increasingly feeling that this was a good idea. Intellectually, I've always known that it was, but emotionally, I've had moments of doubt, especially when in pain.
The biggest advantage of having a bilateral mastectomy is the control it gives me in relation to my BRCA2 gene mutation—a double-edged sword. When I first learned of the presence of the gene mutation in the tumours removed during surgery for ovarian cancer, I was told that the news was positive overall. As my oncologist Dr. Faught explained to me, people with a mutation in their BRCA gene respond better to chemotherapy and have an additional line of treatment available to them—a drug that keeps cancer cells from growing. But if that BRCA gene mutation is in every cell, the carrier is at increased risk of other cancers. My subsequent genetic testing revealed that I did, indeed, have a BRCA2 gene mutation in all my cells, and my risk of breast cancer was pegged at 50-85%.
With last week's mastectomy, however, I've cut that risk tenfold—down to just 5-8%. I still enjoy the benefits of the BRCA2 gene mutation, while taking the risks out of the equation—or, at least, greatly reducing them. My double-edged sword now has one blunted side.
I've been thinking a lot about genetic testing in the last few days. I recently learned that actor Pierce Brosnan lost his first wife, Cassandra, to ovarian cancer. His daughter and mother-in-law also died of the disease. It's not clear whether Brosnan's daughter, who died in 2013, was ever tested for a gene mutation. It would have been too early for her mom, who died in 1991, and much too early for her grandmother, who died when Cassandra was in her teens.
I am a proponent of genetic testing when a family member receives a confirmed diagnosis of a pathogenic gene mutation (a mutation capable of causing disease). My own genetic testing has given me information and choices that would not otherwise have been available to me. Onwards.
