Hi everyone, I posted about two weeks ago, and found your support really helpful. I’m still waiting to be referred to the breast clinic, I went back to the gp and was told it could be take up to four weeks, ‘this is the NHS you know!!’
It was my 30th birthday last week so I’ve been concentrating on having a good time, although I’m back to worrying again.
I know I shouldn’t keep reading scary things on the internet, but it seems to be my only source of information at the moment. The eczema on my nipples has totally cleared up thanks to some tape which is soaked in steroid cream, but the lump is still quite obviously there. I’m just worried that the gp assumes it is purely related to my long-standing skin condition, and is not treating it with the urgency it might require.
Has anyone else had to wait longer than two weeks for a referral??
I thought everyone was supposed to get an appt within 2 weeks of referral these days. Has your GP given you an urgent referral cos I think that is what you need. I saw my GP on a Tuesday and had my first appt on Thursday of the next week and that was with Easter in the middle. Having said that things didn’t go very smoothly and I had to go back twice more with dx taking a month but at least I was in the system. Is there anyway you can chase this up, go back and tell him how concerned you are, lay it on a bit thick, not that you should have to but id thats what it takes.
Hi there AJXXX, no unfortunately the appointments are done in order of how “urgent” the GP feels it is! This to me is a lot of well I won’t swear but the word begins with B!!! I was given an appointment four weeks down the line, I only got seen earlier because they had a cancellation and I pushed for it. I have gone from not being “urgent” from my stooopid GP, who incidentally said I had no lump and was imagining it, to having surgery this Friday to see if it’s the C word!
It’s all wrong as GP’s are not the experts on BC!!!
Sorry to hear that you are hvaing to wait so long for your appointment.
In my area urgent referrals are taking 2 weeks and none-urgent can be anything between 4 and 6 weeks. I used my private medical insurance and was seen 3 days later and my schedule was 20 days from seeing consultant to surgery. I thought, as most ppl do, that every day that this lump was in my body it was getting worse, but I’ve since been told by the BCN that physically a 4 week wait would not have made any difference. Of course the waiting is horrendous so from the physcological side of things the sooner you get to the clinic the better.
Maybe you could be asked to be put on the list for a cancellation.
Take no notice of your GP they are not breast cancer experts. I had a phone call from mine today (he is very good) asking how I was. He said he couldn’t believe it when he got the report back from the hospital to say I had BC, as he really thought it was nothing to worry about. I thanked him for taking my concerns seriously at the time and asked him to do me a favour and send anyone who comes in with any breast concerns at all to get checked out as only the experts can rule it out. It’s taught me a very big lesson we know our own bodies and can tell when something has changed, I had no lump it just didn’t feel the same. Sometimes you need to be pushy.
Hope it is nothing to worry about but we will be here if you need us.
Hi Kitty
I noticed breast changes on the 24 April I eventually got an appointment with GP on 2nd May. (I had a lot of trouble getting past receptionist as I asked for a female doctor.) She referred me to breast clinic as non urgent and my appointment is 16 June. I was stunned I still have over 3 weeks to wait and by the time I do get to be seen it will have been 2 months!
Hope you have better luck
Karen
We seem to be in the hands of how serious our GP’s take that first appt. I saw a locom at my first appt and he was very serious, he didn’t tell me to worry and he didn’t tell me not to worry. he just said yes there is a lump there I need to refer you I will do it today and he did, you can’t ask for more than that can you. I have since thanked him for taking it so seriously from the off.
Ann I think its lovely your GP phoned you, I had absolutely no contact from my GP from dx in early May till mid July when I was well into chemo after surgery, no phone call, visit, advice, nothing. The district nurse called in to check the drain and she sorted out some better pain relief, the hospital sent me home with a packet of paracetomol, wow thanks. She then came back and removed the drain on day 5 but that was all. Having never had a serious illness or an operation before I had no idea if this was normal practice.
hi kitty,
hope all goes well for you,
i recently saw the nurse at my gp’s as i have an inverted nipple and have discharge.
my referral will take up to 3 weeks.
what a long wait?
i saw my GP and was referred to clinic, was seen within two weeks.(my mum had bc) got biopsy done and 1 week later was told it was bc. someone i know who has no bc in her family was seen just as quickly as me and was told it was bc.
i think that it’s terrible that some women are made to wait so long and some GP’s think they are god, tell you it’s nothing serious and don’t refer you or put you down as non urgent case, we should all be urgent reguardless of age or size of lump or anything else for that matter.
kitty watch what your reading on the internet, my bcn told me to only go into breast cancer uk sites as other sites can scare. take care of youself and if you want to moan then go ahead and moan.
Karen40 - i have trouble getting past my GP’s receptionist, must be part of their training - not to let patients past them!
I didn’t get diagnosed for six months after finding my lump
during the time between finding it and diagnosis I regularly came to this site. I felt a bit of a fraud as three months in I was told my lump was definitely benign.
Still it helped me a lot in giving useful info e.g. how to ask for and read a pathology report - so I was able to request one on the day of my diagnosis.
It may be my cancer was hard to diagnose as it was very rare and low grade (the most like normal breast tissue)
hi i called my doctors and got an appointment with locum same day and was sent for mamogram week later and operated on 2 weeks after that To be honest it all happened to quick for me felt as if I was in a dream
Ok, I know I’m being self indulgent, but I need to moan! I’ve just been given a date for a laparoscopy, to see if I have endometriosis and to treat it if I have. I’ve also just turned down immunosuppressant treatment for my severe ezcema, because I want my lump checking out first, and because I have this op booked for four weeks time. I’ve chased up my GP and have been told that they will resend my referral letter, although they sent the original referral on 6th May. I feel totally drained by all this, and feel like a horribly bad mother for snapping at my two year old, although I don’t do it very often, if I do it at all then I feel like the worst parent in the world. How the hell are you supposed to cope with all this waiting around!! How do you all manage it??
Good for you for keeping on your GP’s back (not that you should have to !). I was pretty lucky in that I saw my GP one day and managed to get an appointment at the breast clinic six days later (last Monday) - I was due to get my results on Wednesday but due to them not being ready and the bank holiday, I have got to wait until next Wednesday…grrrrrr…I am so with you on the whole waiting thing. I am just trying to keep busy (having three little ones under five helps!) to keep my mind off things. Fingers crossed, you will get your appointment soon and I hope all goes well for you
