I had first primary breast cancer in 2003 left breast then diagnosed again same breast with different kind of breast cancer in 2022. I was really cross after 19 years as I did not want a mastectomy. I had a quadrantectomy first time and second time a diep reconstruction after the dreaded mastectomy. I had allergic reactions to the glues, sutures and antibacterial lotions they use which made me itch for a long time. But I eventually accepted it was bad luck but someone has to be in the stats for oestrogen positive breast cancer which recurs at a steady rate of 1% a year so by 30 years the number of recurrences out of 100 people diagnosed 30 years ago should equal 30 roughly a third
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Thanks for posting again. I am sort of numb from this new dx. I am scared of a mastectomy with reconstruction, but I donât think there would be any other way since itâs the same breast. Other than the itching, etc. how did your reconstruction go/look in the end?
Hi @Seagulls have you read the attached paper? I canât quite get my head around the statement that â25% of women with er+ tumours have a 42-55% chance of seeing their cancers return within 20 yearsâ as I donât know if that means a local recurrence or distant recurrence. The article is from 2019 and is about combined research between Stanford University in the states and Cambridge University Cancer Research unit who are responsible for the Predict tool. It certainly sounds to me as if weâre close to a more sophisticated analysis of genes which would mean more treatment for the 25% and less for the 75%. I assume none of this was spoken about on your second diagnosis?
no nothing was said at my second diagnosis but I had mastectomy and diep reconstruction this time. I did read my pathology report and it said there was hardly any clearance between the chestwall and the tumours I had (one was grade 2 oestogen positive of no special type 2.6 cm and the other was a metastatic intramammary node. Itâs quite rare to have these so they always seem to refer to them as an adverse feature but I doubt if they have done a proper trial.
I donât think they found any lymph nodes in my arm so if I had any they were probably removed at my previous surgery in December 2003. My feeling is that it may well spread via my blood vessels in the chest area but it came out quite low on the oncotype dx test sent to the USA so who knows? The way things are at the moment at home and in the world I am not keen to live too long. Next August if I live that long I will be 70. Three score years and ten, the best you can get really.
My old history teacher replied to me when I sent a letter to her during Lockdown 2010 (?) in her care home. In her letters she referred to popping her clogs. She also wrote me a long letter all about her life, from being a school girl, to when she ventured forward living in other countries then coming back to the UK to work as a secondary school teacher, mainly in the East End of London.
She was probably around 95 when she died but she had a very interesting life which she told me about in her letters to me. She was evacuated to the west country to a family of boys and had a great time. She went to Australia and New Zealand to work as a teacher then came back, worked in Hackney in London and at some point came to work in a school near where her mum lived so she could look after her and teach us. We loved her and my year 16 out of 20 in her O level history class got grade Aâs the top mark.
She took no nonsense but she was very interested in her subject and she didnât like us to be silly. Her name was Miss Sheila Walker and sheâs in heaven now.
RIP. Seagulls
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