From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…
I honestly thought the “pain” part was over once chemotherapy was done.
I don’t know for sure about my wife, but for some reason I thought that once the drugs had cleared her system, life would become a bed of roses. I thought the swelling ankles, aches, pains and wooziness and other symptoms we’d come to expect with chemo would be gone.
Then a few weeks ago, there was “the fever”. This happened during chemo, so we weren’t exactly surprised and I blogged about it here: http://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/2011/08/real-poop.html. There’ve been other aches and pains – at least I know about the ones she TALKS about – but nothing really serious.
Yesterday, she came home with chest pains – NOT THOSE KIND OF CHEST PAINS! – and we’ve been talking about it. I (of course) did some research and found the following:
“According to the University of Florida, the cut nerves can also cause shooting pains soon after surgery, and dull aching or burning pains for up to a year. The nerve pain will subside with time, and any pain can be treated with medication in the interim. The nervous system has a limited ability to repair itself following damage, and the numbness in the skin may persist for long after surgery.” (http://www.livestrong.com/article/113850-breast-mastectomy-complications/#ixzz1ZWy5RMZc)
I was aware that nerves grow slowly. That is a standard teaching to ALL biology students and an area of continued research in medicine. In fact, there’s still work being done on nerve regeneration and even to find out how to make limbs regrow themselves – a theme from an old book my master storyteller, Madeleine L’Engle called THE ARM OF THE STARFISH. Logic leads me to realize that growing nerves might just hurt.
However, I also found this: “Since mastectomy…I have muscle spasms in the pectoral muscle and pain along the incision area…I have a constant squeezing like a boa constrictor squeezing under my ribcage area and it goes around my entire body. [A couple of doctors respond] At the time of the mastectomy, the surgery extends down to the base of the breast, including the covering of the pectoralis muscle there. Many women…notice increased sensitivity at the ribcage after mastectomy…It's also common to see sensitivity at the rib with age with anyone. This is something called costochondritis.” (http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/planning/ask_expert/2008_05/question_07.jsp)
As well, my wife realized that she’s been lifting things lately – likes tables, chairs and sometimes grandsons! It’s not something she’s been doing for the past seven months and she’s realized that it MAY just be the type of ache that comes from bringing yourself up to speed after a long break from exercise – so we relax a bit, keep a close watch on the condition and continue on…
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