was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer in my abdomen about a month ago. have started letrozole. I am finding this all such a shock, seems unusual place to get it and so vague that I cant really take in that im not curable. do I ask the oncologist the dreaded question how long? and do I want to know. like everyone these days I search “DR GOOGLE” and all I read is 22% make 3 years. I suppose in my mind if my life was so shortened I would feel really ill, when at the moment just have niggling pains in stomach area and upset stomach, but I am living my normal life so it feels surreal. thoughts are worse at night when my mind races, suppose just need someone to tell me this isn’t the immediate end and that I may have more than 3 years left.
I can really empathise with you. I have it in my bones. I’ve been on this journey over a year and feel well. I googled endlessly at the start but it wasn’t helpful. People advised me to stay in the now. It was good advice x
I agree, don’t google time scales, the information is so out of date. In fact when I had my secondary diagnosis in 2008 the stats were about 2 years, it just goes to show how out of date they were then as we are now in 2019 and I’m still here!. At the time on the forum there were quite a few ladies who had also lived for many years (far more than 2) with secondary BC and that was before all the newer treatments had even become available.
Basically we are all different and we all respond in different ways to our treatments so it is very difficult to compare timescales and even our own oncologists are only taking a guess if they are asked for a prognosis. I personally have never asked, and never been given a prognosis or timescale and I’m happy to have kept it that way. Every one is entitled if they do want to know of course.
I hope this helps
Nicky x