Hi maureen4
Sorry to find you here Maureen and how you feel is completely understandable. I’m a bit younger at 58 but my diagnosis was similar to yours four years ago, stage 1, low grade. Everyone in my breast clinic was very jolly saying everything would be fine, they weren’t worried about me and that I was lucky it was all found so early. Well, I didn’t feel lucky frankly being told I had breast cancer! Treatment was swift, trouble free, (I had a mastectomy due to extensive low grade DCIS, as well as a very small invasive). Healing was fine and then the anxiety hit when they sent me on my way with hormone therapy. Apart from yearly follow ups, in so far as they were concerned I was done! Any cancer diagnosis is devastating and you will probably need some talking therapy and counselling to help you through it. I did and it helped me enormously put into perspective what I’d just gone through. Talk to your nurse and Macmillan.
With regard to Letrozole. I’m on it for 3 years, currently 18 months in after starting on 2 years of Tamoxifen. Most people post menopause take Letrozole or other AI’s as they work differently to Tamoxifen. There can be a higher risk of uterine cancer and blood clots with Tamoxifen. There are side affects with both but I choose to press on. I figure even when the benefit of AI’s is deemed to be low on PREDICT scores, there is still benefit otherwise they wouldn’t prescribe them. The words of my surgeon constantly ring in my ears when she said you are low grade and low risk but occasionally she had seen low grade breast cancers “play up”. That did it for me, I was determined to take them for the full course. I understand when some people’s side affects are miserable that they want to stop, and it’s a very personal choice. However, there are things that can help like changing brands, taking at different times of the day and even keeping moving and pushing through the stiffness and pain, which is what I’ve done. Now, I have very few side affects and the ones I do have I ignore or hardly notice. I’m just too busy getting on with my life to bother thinking about them in the knowledge that I’m taking my meds and doing all I can to prevent recurrence.
I hope you feel better soon and that your anxiety can diminish with some counselling. It’s very real and very debilitating.
Frances x