Tim I’m really sorry to hear about your brother and your Nan. I know you must be absolutely terrified that you are going to lose Nicky too. (My sister has been recalled for investigations after a routine screening mammogram and I am panicking). She is absolutely terrified obviously because I have just finished treatment for an aggressive breast cancer.
I don’t want to give you false hope but I do want to let you know that there is an awful lot of good news about breast cancer. The picture is not as gloomy as is sometimes portrayed on these forums. People do recover from breast cancer and live for many many years with it. So many people are living much more than 5 years with it (85% on some figures) that it is no longer considered a critical illness by many insurance companies.
I suspect that many of those people do not visit or post to these forums because they are too busy getting on with their lives and being happy. These forums are intended to support people affected by breast cancer and generally speaking they do a great job of that but I do suspect that most of the people using them are doing so because they are still having problems whether physical or psychological. This means that sometimes an unnecessarily gloomy picture might be presented on the forums.
I’m not an expert so can’t predict statistically what might happen to Nicky. Once again the person who can is your onc. He/she will give you a statistical prediction of the outlook for Nicky if you ask for it. This has its own risks of course because it can be very hard to see these things written down. But it can also be very helpful. At the moment you probably think the chance of the cancer coming back is 100%. Actually its nowhere near that. I hope this hasn’t made you panic more. I’m just trying to reassure you and give you some realistic hope in general terms. Please talk to your onc or breast care nurse about this. There is no reason to live with this degree of terror at the moment and there may never be. Take care of yourselves.
Best wishes
Roisin