Before I started my first chemotherapy I still had to have one more surgery. This surgery is removing lymph nodes under the arm to be sure that the cancer had not spread beyond the initial site in the breast and to place the medi-port. The medi-port will be used to infuse the chemotherapy.
There are different methods that the surgeon could use to choose what lymph nodes to the one I wish my surgeon had done is called a sentinel node dissection. With this the surgeon removes the lymph node closest to the tumor, if this lymph node shows no signs of cancer than the likely hood that the cancer had not spread.
My surgeon chose to do what is called axillary lymph node dissection. With this procedure they make an incision under the arm in the armpit and remove 10 or more lymph nodes and have all 10 of them all checked for cancer. One down fall of this type of procedure that the more lymph nodes that the surgeon removes the less that your arm has to remove fluids, and fight off infection in that arm. When you do not have enough lymph nodes in your arm you become susceptible to a disorder called lymphedema. Lymphedema is when the affected arm starts retaining fluid and swells. When it swells it causes nerve damage and pain. There are things that can be done as precautions to keep the fluid level down, you need to be careful not to get cuts on the affected limb, you have to be careful as to using the limb too much.
If you notice that your arm is starting to swell, you can have your doctor write a prescription for a lymphedema sleeve. The lymphedema sleeve is a tight elastic sleeve that you wear on the affected limb. A lot of breast cancer survivors have to wear them daily or when they travel by air, you may have seen someone wearing one before and never realized it. Some of these sleeves come in fashionable designs, the one I have is just plain skin tone. I try not to wear it very often, when I notice that it is starting to swell I have taught my daughter and husband how to do a gentle massage to help the fluids drain.