Dear All,
The date for my second mammogram and follow up is coming closer and I am getting more anxious by the day. Since I finished treatment nearly two years ago I haven’t recovered my levels of energy and I usually feel very tired with, apparently no reason. Also I have pains on the site of the operation and sometimes bone pains. The oncologists tell me it is nothing to worry about because the tests don’t show anything alarming and my prognosis is relatively good but, there is always a “BUT” when talking about cancer, I don’t really believe in good or bad prognosis as, for what I have read so far it seems cancer is quite unpredictable (people with lymph nodes involment don’t gent recurrence and people with lymph nodes free of cancer have massive recurrence and also it seems people with hormone positive cancer, in theory less aggressive than the other, get recurrence usually in the long run while people with cancer sensitive to herceptin get recurrence more in the short run). Sometime I wonder if is really possible to live a life free of cancer once you have been dx at an early age. I don’t know but, I tend to feel a bit pessimistic about it.
I think with all the progress in molecular studies and treatments cancer is still a big unknown territory for oncologist and it should be treated like that. I don’t get why the follow ups end after five years when you can get a recurrence any moment any time, I think the protocol should change. Also I find appellant that knowing that is not necessary to have lymph involment for metastasis the protocol is still not perform further scans when lymph nodes are free of cancer. I really think protocols so far have proven not to be as useful as they should be and they must be change.
I hope I am not making anybody miserable reading this. I just wanted to give my pice of mind about it.
XXXx