u/Efficient-Bee-6451

Long story short, I have a random spot on my underboob of skin that took forever to fully heal. It’s recently opened and has been trickling fluid. (Just finished antibiotics to rule out infection). I noticed today the hole is bigger now (and ironically draining less). This isn’t on my incision line, it’s above it on the bottom of my breast

My plastic surgeon is going to stitch it closed on Thursday in hopes that will keep it closed. If that doesn’t work we have to figure something else out and hopefully we can avoid having to remove the expander

Anyone go through something similar to this? I feel like I’m the rare story because I’ve never heard of this happening before

I finished radiation 2 weeks ago and didn’t have any issues until now. I’ve been getting low grade fevers (twice a day usually) since Thursday night, extreme fatigue and occasional shortness of breath. To me that’s telling me radiation pneumonitis. However, I am just finishing up my weeks worth of antibiotics because I’ve had a small patch of skin on my underboob that took forever to heal and I actually opened it from overexertion. It’s literally a pin prick size hole that is trickling fluid so we want to rule out infection.

There’s no warmth/redness/swelling in my breast at all and I didn’t start with the fevers until I was 6 days into antibiotics so it can’t be expanded infection right? Also, has anyone’s expanders started to look different? I’m 4 months post and I feel like they are positioned differently now but that could very well be my mind playing tricks on me.

I see my Rad Onc tomorrow so I’m going to ask for a chest CT to see what we’re working with.

Soooo many things happening at once I feel like my body is just screaming for normalcy 😩

Finished chemo in December, BMX w/expanders in January, finished radiation on Monday. I was so excited to not have any appointments and to have a “normal” day with my 2yr old so we went grocery shopping, got coffee, etc. These last 2 days I’ve felt absolutely AWFUL. My entire body hurts and I’m a little concerned that I tore the muscle in my right breast. I’m fully aware that I lost ALL of my muscle during chemo that I spent years achieving, but I truly did not think I’d feel this bad for overdoing it.

The worst part? The extreme mom guilt I have for snapping at my son during lunch when he didn’t do anything wrong, I’m just in pain.

These are the parts no one tells you, life is FAR from normal once chemo is done or radiation is done or surgery is done. I’m struggling to accept the fact that I need to remain patient and I’ll get there one day. But when you’ve felt like absolute hell for 8 months, it’s hard to be patient sometimes.

Oh, and of course, radiation fatigue got me finally.

Sending love & grace to anyone else having a crappy day today, you’re not alone!