The Pink Ribbon Roller Coaster

This is a wonderful resource for BC patients and survivors. I’m grateful to the ladies who provide this helpful info and service. I do, however, want to suggest that they do a follow-up episode with Dr. Nicole Sharp Cottrell (she’s amazing!) to focus on the actual mastectomy surgery and have her explain what is surgically done to the tissues and nerves and how that can physically affect a woman post-surgery and throughout the rest of her life. I was disappointed that the interview did not go into this detail. Many of us have suffered tremendous damage to underlying tissue, had significant scar tissue build-up—and most of all—endured terrific, permanent pain from nerve damage. For me, this pain consists of deep, intense aching and/or burning that reaches from armpit to armpit, down into the underside of the upper arms, and often radiating into the upper back. Oftentimes it feels like a rubber band is wrapped around my chest. This burning gets so intense that sometimes my CNS kicks in and the burning will radiate up into my neck and even face! I’m 11 yrs post-bilateral mastectomy, yet this pain feels as though I had my surgery very recently. I and others want to know and understand what was done—or could possibly happen—during surgery to cause such pain, and what type of specific PT Dr. Cottrell recommends to her patients to help reduce such pain.