Someone has lent me the book ‘The Complete Guide to Breast Cancer’ - How to Feel Empowered and Take Control. I would advise everyone to read this book, it is full of information and explanations, answering all our questions.
That sounds good. You said you are an older lady living alone. I hate to ask a woman’s age but I am 66 and when I was first diagnosed I was 48. I have a recurrence of my original cancer but I had 19 years with a lumpectomy rather than a mastectomy. I didn’t like it as I have small breasts and to me it looked bad but the latest results seem to be a lot better. If you have low grade cancer as I did, without lymph nodes involved which I also had, you have a good chance it won’t spread to other organs in the body. Nothing is certain except death and taxes so it depends on how much you value your body. Mastectomy is bigger surgery than lumpectomy. It also causes permanent numbness in part of your chest area and you can get phantom breast syndrome when it feels like you still have a breast. I would prefer not to have a mastectomy but as far as I know that’s what you have if your cancer recurs like mine has. So that’s the other downside potentially of not having a mastectomy. It’s pretty rare to have a recurrence though. I think it comes down to personal preference and how much risk you can live with. Most people don’t die of breast cancer. The numbers of deaths each year have been pretty static since the 1970s. It seems to be worse the younger you are when you get it. Seagulls
Thank you so so much for introducing this book- I love books- I ordered the audio book version and after listening to a bit of it ordered the paper copy too so I have all the terminologies in written format, then spent some time and researched the writers - they are both great
fantastic book & I am ever so grateful to you for suggesting it, it has given me quite a few ideas how to prepare myself to hear my results next week