Diagnosed yesterday - Intermediate Ductal Carcinoma

Hi everyone, I’m Jayne.  I would like to say it’s so nice to meet you all, but this is a forum I never expected to find myself.

I’m 52, relatively healthy with an absolutely amazing husband and was loving life, running our own business, kids left home, travelling, living the dream to be honest.

Seven weeks ago I had my first mammogram and to my horror a mass was found right at the edge of the scanned image.  I was recalled and went to Swansea to the breast unit for further investigations and was assigned a breast care nurse.  I could not feel this lump, I went to the centre expecting it to be nothing, I was told I may only need another mammogram and would go home, this wasn’t the case.  I had a mammogram, an examination (they couldn’t feel it either) and an ultrasound where they found it and then a tissue biopsy.  I asked questions ‘is it a cyst’; no… is it cancer ’ it could be’ was the reply, then I was silent.  Everything goes through your mind at 1000mph, I was dying, my husband was going to lose me, what about my 80y old dad, my 30 y old disabled daughter.

We were going to France in our moho the following week, the BCN told me to go, we did and it was lovely, I forgot about everything!  Arriving back into the UK on Tuesday my phone pinged, it was my BCN asking me to go to Singleton Hospital on the 11th (yesterday)  Heart sanki, forgot all about my lovely holiday and bawled all the way home!!!

I arrived home to a letter asking me to go to Singleton to see a Miss M Dillon - I of course then googled her and she is a Breast Cancer surgeon so I then knew my worst fears had come to fruition, I had BC.  Told the family who all said it’ll be nothing, a fatty lump, benign, nothing, but I knew.

Went yesterday to Singleton and in comes the BCN carrying some paperwork, it was only me and my husband in the waiting room,  my leg was shaking that bad he had to hold it down, we were taken to a lovely pink room with soft seating with ‘Counselling suite’ on the door, I bloody knew then.  I asked the BCN is it cancer, it’s cancer isn’t it??  She said ‘wait for Miss Dillon’ I said I know it’s BC now I’m in a bloody counselling suite, I completely fell apart.  My BCN spoke to me about the holiday, asked about theb kids etc, all I was thinking was I’m going to die, it was my last ever holiday.

The BDCN was right, once I had met Miss Dillon it was like the hugest weight had been lifted off my shoulders, yes I do have caner, but it’s EARLY, stage 1.  She said it’s basically the best it could be, plan is magnaseed in within 10 days or so, a wide local incision and removal of ‘Norman the squatter’ and some surrounding breast tissue the second week of June, 5 consecutive days of radiotherapy once healed (about 4 weeks after) then tamoxifen for ten years.  And I gues that’s it, we soldier on, thank god for it being so early and wait to get it done.

Biopsy results : Grade 1 Intermediate Ductal Carcinoma, oestrogen and progesterone positive.

Sentinel lymph node biopsy (they look and feel clear she said)

Radiotherapy and endocrine (tamoxifen I presume) therapy. 

HER2 negative (which is aparently a good thing!!!)

We soldier on :slightly_smiling_face:

Jayne

Hello @rainstarr  

Welcome to the club! As you quite rightly say the one no-one wants to join. 
Reading your story I can relate 100%: pretty much my story too…!

Every emotion you have been through (and are yet to go through!) is entirely understandable and “normal”: but please please don’t ever dismiss them. The path you are on is incredibly common (you only find out how common it is when you get on it yourself and find out quite how many ladies have walked it before) but everyone makes their own footprints on it and you soon learn there is most definitely life after a breast cancer diagnosis! 

There is lots and lots of support out there, both in real life and online and please don’t ever be afraid to ask for it if you need it: some ladies feel that their diagnosis “isn’t as bad” as others and that they are somehow making fuss when others have it worse, this is most definitely not the case!

You will most definitely love life again! In a slightly perverse way I consider my life after BC to be a lot better than my life pre BC! Don’t get me wrong it isn’t easy it takes time and it can take longer for some than others but my diagnosis was in July 2021

Wishing you all the best for your treatment and beyond

AM xxx

Hi Jayne.

Firstly - I really enjoyed your writing, you know how to paint a picture with words!  Norman the squatter sounds like he’s going to get very short shrift indeed and good riddance to him.

I’m sorry you’ve had such a shock, but if you’re anything like me, knowing what the treatment plan is feels like a good step on the road to sorting this out.

Please keep talking - I think it really helps.

Hi @rainstarr  / Jayne

I’m sorry you’re here, but it is a lovely place for support from people who get what you’re going through. I got diagnosed 4 weeks ago and had my surgery - wide local incision and sentinel node biopsy - about ten days ago.

I couldn’t feel the lump either, it was a recall on my first mammogram.

My cancer type is different, tubular, but their expected treatment plan is similar to yours. That may change at the follow up appt on Thursday when I’ll hear whether the margin and lymph nodes were clear. I’m getting nervous now.

I know what you mean about the little room. Mine didn’t have the sign on the door, but I could tell it was the “difficult conversations” room. Also the BCN mentioned I’d have a chat with the consultant, then she’d give me some leaflets, so that was the giveaway for me.

I didn’t find the magseed insertion bad, better than the biopsy in my case. I’m sure you’ll find loads of advice about the surgery. Front fastening bra and some soft button down tops have been indispensable. And as other have said, as much as possible, try and take things one day at a time.

We soldier on,

Kelly