Worried about results

--- Hi Laine
Sorry to hear you are having not such a good time at the moment,it is true this is a good place to seek advice and reassurance from others who really know how it feels.
The waiting is the worst, I think it is because we feel out of control.But your wait is nearly over.I like you wanted to have the lump removed as soon as possiable,I found a great relief at having this done.I am normally afraid of having surgery but to be honest I could not wait for it to be done.
With regard to the New Year it may not hold for you what you were expecting,but it will hold something for you it will just be different.
Good Luck with your results

Love

Sarah x

knowing is best I hope you don\'t have breast cancer but your surgeon seems to be giving you some hints that you may well have, hopefully she is wrong, but if not, please read on.

I don\'t really go for drip feeding, perhaps fortunately for me at the time of my diagnosis I had a lodger who had undergone breast cancer treatment four years before me so I had already seen the results of surgery on her breasts (not very good in my opinion). She\'d also told me about chemo and radiotherapy. She worked throughout her treatment so when I was told a lot of guff about how I\'d lose loads of weight and have to take loads of time off work I basically took no notice. My lodger seemed to have coped admirably with it, so why couldn\'t I?

Luckily, due to the low grade of my tumour and the fact that despite 6 months of misdiagnosis it was still small and apparently had not spread to my lymph nodes, I didn\'t have chemo anyway. The worst thing for me was the surgery, I\'d imagined that as long as you caught the cancer early you would be bound to have a lumpectomy. No such luck in my case, and I reckon in about 50% of cases. I ended up with partial mastectomy and a very obvious dent in one breast, but some might think I got off lightly. I also had fifteen sessions of radiotherapy which lasted roughly ten minutes each. I loathed every moment, but I did work throughout the period I had radiotherapy (apart from Easter).

I am meant to take tamoxifen for 5 years and hopefully that is that. But over 5 years of cancer treatment does seem a bit much to me, I like the idea of taking two aspirins and that is the end of it.
There are many different kinds of breast cancers, I had one which grew under the influence of oestrogen, this is why I have been advised to take tamoxifen for 5 years. Some breast cancer doesn\'t respond to hormones, so this kind of treatment is only given to those women for whom it works.

Other women are more likely to have chemo treatment if the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes, if they have oestrogen negative cancer, or if they are younger than me (below 45 or so). Treatment if you have chemo seems to last about a year longer, and involve much more time off work.

I took 7 weeks but that was partly due to a wound infection I developed after surgery which extended treatment by a month. Otherwise I could have been back at work in two or three weeks, with time off for radiotherapy sessions (I went to work during these) and a couple of weeks time off with sick leave at the end of radiotherapy to deal with the tiredness I felt.

I think they try to keep women in the dark as maybe women would be put off going for treatment if they knew more about it. I want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I am probably older than some of the doctors and a lot wiser so why do they think they know best for me? They don\'t know me at all, certainly I had only met my surgeon once before diagnosis, so how can they presume to protect me from myself?

My main problem now is emotional, I was misdiagnosed for 6 months which has made me distrust every aspect of modern medicine. Athough I have been told my cancer is the best kind to have with a 98% of me living 10 or more years, I can\'t believe it, and I am currently being investigated for the cause of a bad back which I am convinced is bone cancer. Needless to say my consultant laughed at the idea, but then he hasn\'t got the pain, nor has he got breast cancer to the best of my knowledge. Mind you I am only 2 years post treatment and I have been told it takes a long time to regain trust in your body and not have the sort of anxieties I have.

I hope this hasn\'t made you feel even worse than you did! And expect to develop galloping hypochondria if you didn\'t have it before.

Mole

And me Hi Mole, yes you have been a fount of information, especially on the old forum (sighs nostalgically) and I hope your bad back is nothing to worry about. Sadly this is the way my sister\'s BC went - after mastectomy and oophrectomy and nearly two symptom free years, she developed pains in her back which were initially dismissed, but did indeed turn out to be metastatic spread to her bones. But she was quite young (late thirties) so the cancer was much more aggressive, and this was some years ago now, I believe things have moved on a lot since then, in some ways anyway.
I\'m sure I don\'t need to tell YOU to keep pressuring for all the tests you can get, but the best of luck with them anyway and I hope it turns out to be nothing to worry about at all.

I\'m sorry Laine, I\'m sorry it wasn\'t what you were hoping for, but I sense a very positive attitude there which is brilliant and will help you cope. Just make sure that wretched bc knows who\'s boss.

It\'s a very difficult time, having to call and meet people and tell them your diagnosis - the \"trying to be strong for others\" thing doesn\'t always seem to work and we\'ve all found ourselves blubbing mid-sentence.

You will find some people are really good at taking in the news and offering support whilst others you thought you were closest to seem to turn their backs and almost walk away. I found that was a very hard lesson to learn but had to come to understand that that was the only way they could deal with the fact that someone they loved had the unmentionable. Ostrich head in sand, so to speak.

Good luck for next Thursday and keep us updated. If you would like me to send you some Reiki distant healing, please let me know.
Check out my profile.

Love and a big cheering-up type hug

Judy xxx

Sorry too Laine,

I\'m sorry to too that you have had to join our club. I can\'t really add anything more to what\'s been said but just wanted you to know I\'m thinking of you. Kathy is right, it does get better once you know what is going to happen with your treatment.

Good luck and a big virtual hug

Jo xx

Hi Laine Just want to say that we know what you\'re feeling, we\'ve been there. This is the hardest time but you will start to feel better even though it doesn\'t feel like it now.

I was open to everyone about it which made it easier for them to talk about it to me.

We\'re all here for you so keep posting,

Zeb
xx