Hi,
Sorry to hear, I know this is a frightening time, I went through very similar experience last year. This is a great place for support, please ask as many questions as you want. What is your diagnosis at this point? Can you tell us a little about yourself?
Last year I had a suspicious mole removed that turned out to be Stage 1B, on my chest below my right pectoral. Shortly after that I had the WLE (Wide Local Excision) and SLNB (Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy). I'm located in Canada so I don't know if the treatment will be the exact same for you, but I can tell you what happened for me.
My experience was that there was not a substantial amount of pain from either location. The larger one (WLE site) had a bit more pain. There was just a general pain (obviously) and occasionally very sharp shooting pains from the WLE site, sometimes accompanying movement and sometimes not. I was sent home with Tramacet (acetomenaphen & tramadol I believe, not sure if that's the same as Tylenol 3's or not). But all in all, not too bad and definitely not as bad as I was expecting. When it bothered me I I took a pill but honestly I didn't find that I needed them very often. Almost a year late, I still have mild loss of feeling around the SNLB site, as well as slight tingly feeling, but I was told that was to be expected so it hasn't been a surprise.
If I recall correctly, for the SNLB, they inject you at the primary meloma location with a dye that is colored as well as radioactive. I don't recall if my doctors used them but I believe they have handheld radioactivity detectors, forget what they're called, that tell them approximately where the lymph node is. However even before the surgery started, back when I had the dye injected, I did also go for a CT scan and had the location marked on me. Then once they're in they visually identify the nodes as well because they are colored by the dye. FYI the dye can also color & stink up your urine for a day or two, at least it did for me.
Thinking about you, please let us know how it goes.
