Скачать или смотреть Mastectomy and Skincare - Top Tips

Thank you for joining me in my garden for this video about Mastectomy and Skincare.

The tips I share, I used myself.

I was diagnosed with Stage 3 Inflammatory Breast Cancer in January 2020 - sub-type HER2+.

My treatment was as follows:

6 x neoadjuvant TCHP chemotherapy - Taxotere and Carboplatin with the targeted cancer drugs Herceptin and Perjeta. Infusions every three weeks, with an extended gap when the UK went into the first lockdown.

Non skin sparing total mastectomy with lymph node clearance.

15 x radiotherapy - with a bolus.

A total of 17 doses of Herceptin (including three loading doses) via infusion in a chemotherapy unit and, for the last few, via injection at home (Hospital at Home). I finished treatment in June 2021.

I am currently cancer-free but on the NHS surveillance programme for high risk cancers. This involves an annual MRI scan and a mammogram on the 'remainer'. There are currently no long-term drugs for HER2+ breast cancer once NED has been achieved and I declined the offer of twice yearly infusions of zoledronic acid. Come the end of my treatment, I'd had enough!

Occasionally, if I twist a certain way or overstretch a reach, I suffer from cramp like twinges - caused by muscle and nerve damage. They have got less often as the time has gone on.

I have mild lymphedema but keep it in check with exercise. A tingling, tight and hot sensation, which I suffered in the top of my arm after surgery, is now gone. However, one of my biggest fears is being distracted during a health check and not noticing a nurse put a blood pressure band on that arm! It gives me nightmares.

I'll be 58 in December.

I hope you found the tips in the video useful. Below are the links I promised to Knitted Knockers and Look Good Feel Better. These are both UK charities.

https://lookgoodfeelbetter.co.uk/

https://www.knittedknockers.org/

Belinda