Hey Noahgail,
I hope you've read my response to your other message.
Unless the drs think that your cancer is just so invasive and threatening that you have to start chemo immediately, I would imagine that you will have at least a few weeks time to recover from surgery before starting chemo.
Many docs want their patients to be about a month post-op before they start chemo, so that incisions and underlying tissue have a chance to heal quite a bit before being put to the onslaught of chemo. Much less risk of complications that way. Plus it gives a woman time to start to recover from anesthesia, and to start to get her head around an altered body image - those things are all important.
So, if you have a chance to talk to the doc before your surgery Tuesday, I certainly would ask just how soon they are anticipating you will be starting the chemo. You may have more time to prepare than it seems like right now. And if the doc says the chemo will be started immediately or within a few days or a week or two after the surgery, I think I'd be asking for just flat out answers about how aggressive and advanced they think this cancer is. Might not be questions you want to ask, but right now you are your own best advocate - women do themselves a great favor to adopt that approach.
As for waking up from anesthesia and moving on, it is just that. Everybody reacts a little bit differently to the drugs, but most anesthesiologists these days are giving drugs that have an amnesiac effect, so that people don't remember a lot of what happened when they went back into the OR and when they were in the recovery room. That's a pretty good thing. I was given one of those type of drugs when I had surgery on my hand a number of years ago - every surgery since then I've made sure to remind the anesthesiologist to give me that type of drug, and they're happy to oblige.
If you have an overnight hospital stay (or several days) - make sure to be getting up and moving around just as soon as you're allowed. The more you walk, the more you deep breath and cough to get you lungs working again, the better you will be. Once you get home, you've got to start doing gentle exercises to get your arm and shoulder loosened up and moving and to get those muscles limber and reduce swelling. The dr or the staff at the hospital should be giving you a pamphlet that shows the type exercises you should do - if not, you can find them online ( do a web search for postoperative mastectomy exercises.) You might even practice a few of them this weekend - things like walking your fingers up a wall, or holding your hand in front of your breast and very gently pushing forward as if there was slight resistance.
And try to find some time to do SOMETHING fun in the next day or two. Laughter is very important for the next few days and the weeks to come. Gather as much of it as you can!
Keeping you in my thoughts,
Tre