General Advice from a Surgical Ward Nurse who's had Top Surgery
[Not personal medical advice obviously, please ask your care team!]
-Results can take up to 18 months to settle. Please be kind to yourself and your team and do not worry about revisions etc until then. If after 18 months you're still unhappy, then go down the revision pathway.
-Zaps are normal, its the nerves finding each other and holding hands again :)
-You absolutely should be sent home with roughly 2 days worth of strong pain relief, with instructions on over the counter pain meds for after that. If they don't it's ok to say you won't discharge until they do. You are also allowed to ask for a med like a PPI to protect your stomach lining if you get reflux etc, and anti nausea medication.
-You only heal once. Chronic fatigue from overdoing it early is real. Listen to your body, give yourself time, go for nice slow walks. Fuel your body right. Drink water. Make sure you poop.
-A compression garment does a lot of things: it improves blood flow, helps avoid raised scars, helps avoid blood clots, and helps squish everything into shape so it heals right. It's essential, but it also shouldn't be cutting you to pieces. You can ask if you can wear a thin shirt underneath, and use things like medicated ointments to ease chaffing. Sometimes just popping a comfy (clean) sock between you and the binder along a particularly sore edge can do the trick. The garment should sit straight on top of, and not be dragging on, your nipple grafts.
-Drains rarely hurt to come out. Taking the tape off often stings the skin a bit and that's worst part. They will remove the suction, ask you to breath in, then as you breath out it usually just flops out as they gently pull. Don't stress about it and ask for pain relief and anti nausea meds before it if you're squeamish.
-If you don't understand something or are worried about something your nurse is doing, its very ok to ask them to explain it. A good nurse will be very happy to and probably yap your ear off about it.
-If you have great nurses, you can absolutely make their month by remembering their names and writing an email to the facility later to compliment them. Nursing can be a thankless job and you would not believe the difference specific, named compliments make to a nurses career. Most of us keep them forever to read back on on the bad days and it help so much when going for new positions. On that note, a box of Cadbury Favourites is generally most nursing stations preferred chocolates: individually wrapped, lots of variety and don't have the funny taste of Lindt or Roses (Australia) :)