Pain

Noun:

Highly unpleasant physical sensation caused by illness or injury.
Great care or trouble.

It would be remiss of me to say that you will glide through your cancer journey without experiencing any pain.

Chemo isn’t painful as such. It is more fatigue and nausea that you have to deal with.

There are some unpleasant side effects that can be painful. (I lost some of my toenails, and my fingernails went black – that was a little bit tender)

You can also have some level of pain with radiotherapy, in that it can make your skin sore and sometimes blistered. I was lucky and didn’t experience that.

My feet were quite painful in general. I think due to the neuropathy.

But the most pain will be with any surgery you might have. If you are “going flat” or having a silicone implant, the mastectomy process is quite manageable, with just localized pain in your breast.

If you are having a DIEP flap reconstruction, be prepared to feel like you have been sawn in half. It really does sting quite a bit!

My advice would be, in all scenarios, take all the drugs offered. No point being stoic and grinning and bearing. Get off your tits on fentanyl!