This is exactly what I needed to hear so thank you ! I am back to negativity and I have to work through that - my gut and emotional response would be to phone them up and say let’s just go with the mastectomy and then it’s over with . The more rational side is saying, it’s only a few weeks, you can do this so your reply really helped with that - trust the team to make the right decisions for me
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Im now 3 days post lumpectomy, and it’s not pretty but for me not as bad as a full mastectomy.
I’m hoping with time and some potential fat injection it might not finish up to bad
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Hi
I was told my tumour was 15mm on mammogram and 25mm on ultrasound, could have been the other way round, after operation it was in fact 16mm, I don’t think they truly know until after it has been removed
Hope your doing ok
Sending virtual hugs
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Thank you chillout , just trying to take it a day at a time but so so hard
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It’s going to be four or five weeks before all tests and Christmas is a dim memory before I get a date for surgery - I think it is a shitty shitty time to get cancer when everyone is in holiday mode - but Hey is there a good time . ……
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Oh I know, stay strong but if you don’t feel strong then go with it, it’s such a rollercoaster ride of feelings & emotions. I’m currently waiting for full axillary clearance results, 4 weeks so far and still not had them. Went for my first counselling session today to try to help get through it all
Xx
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I agree !!; it’s such an emotional time anyway, makes me even more cheerful tearful than usual. Spend half my time resenting it, half trying to get in to it !!! But mostly couldn’t give a flying f***
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Hi Llanwinno123. I’m ahead of you in the ‘process’. I was diagnosed with IDC (ER +, HER2 -) in August and it was removed on 1st September. I was told the tumour was small and very treatable. I had a lumpectomy with therapeutic breast reduction (so I need a lower dose of radiotherapy). I’ve started hormone therapies and I’m due to start 5 days of radiotherapy next week.
I feel for you. They say the waiting is the hardest part and it really is. Trouble is, you can drive yourself mad wondering, worrying and second guessing everything. I’m a nurse and thought I was helping myself by reading everything I could find to research each step. I now know that feeds the stress and anxiety. I’d say, read enough to be informed (if you want to), then stop. Do something else. I like reading and cross stitch. Netflix is good (no adverts for cancer charities!). See if you can find something to occupy your mind. Exercise is great too. I went for a walk each day (although the weather might get in the way). Take each step as it comes. This is a really rubbish time, but it will get better. You’ve got this.
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Thank you , I appreciate your reply , it’s reassuring . I have stopped googling everything as it just feeds the paranoia . I am trying to keep busy .
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Love your attitude - flying f… lol. I think my personality has changed, I was always the peacemaker in the family but I don’t have filters anymore, I just say it as it is . My daughters call me The Angry Elf . I get angry if people cry about my diagnosis . I know that they care but I can only just manage my emotions and I just refuse to take on other peoples - does that make me selfish, yes it does but it’s how I cope ( or try to)
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I’m absolutely foul most of the time.
God knows how my husband hasn’t murdered me over Christmas !!!
The emotional rollercoaster is real, some days I can cope with it, others I just wallow in it !!
I’m hypercritical of the cancer services, I should be grateful but generally I’m not !!!
Rang the breast cancer nurse this morning and she was useless, nearly said it to her on the phone !!! I’m a very bad patient. Hopefully with time I’ll become a nicer person again !!!
Cancer sure b****** everything up !!
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I completely understand what you are saying. You have only so much energy and dealing with your own thoughts and emotions is difficult enough. Apart from immediate friends and family i told everyone not to contact me with their words of sympathy. It probably wasn’t the fairest thing for me to do but those messages were more for them than they were for me. I know people are sorry and want to share their thoughts with me but I’m forming a protective bubble at the moment and don’t need those messages appearing when I’m having a happy or fun moment and pulling me back down.
We do what we need to do to get through it and at the moment I’m not feeling guilty about it. I’m sure I’ll go back to being nice at some point 
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I did exactly that with work colleagues- I emailed them all and said ,please don’t contact me , no flowers and no cards either. That I knew they were thinking of me and that was enough . I could not handle all the sympathy . It’s bad enough getting sympathetic looks from neighbours ( small village and every knows everyone’s business ) Talking about it and explaining next steps is hard enough with family . I just could not cope with anything more . I feel sometimes that I am living in a parallel universe to everyone else ….
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I got my histology/pathology report too as I wanted to read it myself and they were very cagey which led me to believe my prognosis wasn’t that brilliant despite what the oncologist and nurse were telling me. Yes I was right, it said my chest wall margin after mastectomy was less than 5 millimetres, leading me to think that was a very very small gap. I already had a lymph node which was full of cancer cells which was described as metastatic, so I’m prepared for the worst. I do have grade 2 cancer this time, but my oncotype x score is low so who knows? It seems to me that breast cancer progression is very unpredictable indeed, and that the pathology is the most clear cut evidence. It then gets ignored by everyone else so we don’t have to worry!
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Yes - parallel universe was how I felt at your stage as well at times . I also couldn’t deal with any contact from work colleagues - if someone sent a message I answered it but fortunately they know me well enough to understand that I prefer to lick my wounds in private .
I know you’ve had an awful wait but it gets better I promise . You just need to be able to get through one day then the next .
Xxx
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I sort of know I can’t fully understand and interpret it, but it’s still matters to me to be able to have it. It’s about control, I know.
I’ve certainly learnt that breast cancer is incredibly complicated.
They use many decision making tools to score/ grade each persons tumours and determine treatment plans.
I have to constantly remind myself each treatment has serious side effects. If it was down to me, I’d throw everything medicine has at it. But a lifetime in health care reminds me that it’s always about risks and benefits.
Medicine not magic xxx
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