Hello my name is Nicky and i am a 25 yr old male whom last year at the age of 24 was diagnosed as the youngest male ever in the u.k and possibly the world to have breast cancer.
I have had all my treatment which was 6 months of chemo and 3 weeks of radiotheropy which i still feel tired now with!!!
I also had a radical masectomy where they took away my leftnipple and peptual muscle
It would be great to hear from you all, thank you for reading this
Nicky
Hi Nicky
What a shock that must have been!! Well done you for comng through all that. I was 46 and thought that was young! I do hope that you are feeling OK and getting on with your life. Did you manage to get some reconstructive work done? It must be hard for you - being so young - to have had such radical surgery. I’m sure that there are things that can be done to make it appear less so.
Getting over all the treatments, from surgery to radiotherapy does take a long time and I’m sure that you are not the only one who is left tired with it all. However things change and you adapt to whatever happens to you. I hope also that they are keeping a close eye on you.
You take care and keep posting here. You’ll get lots of help if you need it and someone to talk to who has had breast cancer as well.
Best wishes
Bill
Hi Nicky
I am glad to see another man has posted first, this site is dominated by women of which I am one. I know there are other men out there, Lance for one I hope they get in touch.
I bet it was one hell of a shock for you, I am glad to hear that it was picked up though. I would imagine most GPs would have dismissed a lump in someone as young as you I know they often dismiss the younger ladies and we do have some very young ladies on the site.
I can only agree with Bill, the tiredness lasts for a long long time. Please post if you have any worries, particularly those you may not wish to share with the family, there are lots of experts as well as the professional helpline available at a click of the button.
Take care
Carol
Hi Nicky,
I saw your post earlier and was hoping that a man would reply first. What an awful shock for you and an unenviable record. Please post if you have any questions. I am sure that the other men (as well as some women) will be in touch to share their thoughts. Give your body time to recover from the treatment.
Take care,
Margaret
Hello all,
Thank you for replying to my forum its nice to be able to talk and be able to express myself with fellow sufferers. Your right about the tiredness as i still feel tired after 8 months is this normal still? I know i must drive my family nuts all the time with my tiredness as they probally think its laziness lol!
I have great support and Southend hospital has been nothing but excellent so in certain respects ive had it good.
Please keep writing as enjoy reading your posts
Thank you
Nicky
Hi Nicky
Just drive them all nuts!! Tiredness is a consquence of all the things that have happened to you. i think that’s not an unusuakl thing. I’m still tired sometimes. However, I had my vitamin B12 levels checked and they were low so I get an injection every eight weeks for that. Get yourself checked out to make sure you are not amaemic. I would also suiggest that you get your testosterone levels checked as well. Sometimes chemotheray can severly interfere with that too.
Are you wroking? It’s very difficult sometimes to get back to things that you used to do and you’ll have the added impairment of the surgery to deal with.
You take care, keep well and be happy!!
Best wishes
Bill
Hi Nicky,
I would say that 8 months is nothing to worry about. Your body needs time to recover from the treatment.
Margaret
Well Hi Nicky,
First (WHAT A RECORD !!!), sorry your so young with the old B/C mate, i had the same as you,same side but no chemo though. You say you get tired well so do i, its the tablets that do it to me, sometimes i can stay up till the early hours other times i go to sleep in the day or nine at night, im all over the place lol.
The other thing is that your story is so helpfull in my goal at promoting B/C to men, because your so young i can focus on all ages of men now, if your interested in my idea or want to know more about my aim then please do get in touch, i know it affects people in different ways but my idea is making me feel stronger,
Sorry to rabbit on about my idea,
all the best to you mate,
stay in touch,
Lance.
Hi Nicky
Am a girlie am afraid, but was really gutted to read your post at such an age. I am 39 and female and even for us it is not so common. I do hope you are getting great support and are doing ok. This is beatable, no matter what gender you are, so you go beat it ok
Treatment takes some time to recover from, although it’s early days for me as only finished chemo 5 weeks back and now on rads eveything I have read says the same, it takes time.
Take care of yourself
Nikki
hello all thanks again for your replys as im new to this site and dont want to make an idiot of myself lol!
Lance i would love to help you on awareness for b/c what you got in mind?
Nicky
Nicky Hi again,
Hope alls well and also hope your coping ok,
Its early days yet about what i have in mind but i have had great support from B/C care, im hoping to put it all into practice in the new year, ive got a company to make a board and thier designers are willing to help me with the design, and all free of charge !!!. My mcmillan nurse is also behind me %100 with the ideas, she is going to help me with my approch to the staff at B/C care. If you feel the same as me about making this aware to men then i will get back to you as soon as its put in place, then we can hopefully get in touch and you can cover your local area if you are that interested. You seem to be of the Southend area, im from the cambridge area so its not to far (as the crow flys lol).
get in touch soon & take care mate
Lance
Hi Lance,
What a really good idea, I think awareness of cancer in men particularly in the breast should be much more widely spread. I get cross that testicular cancer is not as well publicised as breast cancer.
I have 3 men in my house and I am the one who picks out leaflets from my oncology departments. I haven’t made them aware of the signs of BC even though I have the blooming disease! I must do that tonight! It will embarrass them but they will have to get over that. It is made all the more poignant that Nicky is the same age as my sons.
Go for it Lance- Thank you on behalf of the men in m family.
Carol
Thank you so much Carol for supporting this,
Nicky has boosted me so much because he is so young, im 50 and a single parent to my three & half yr old girl, i also have a fifteen yr old girl and have been told recently that they have to be aweare of B/C because of me (shock !!), but not my sons though, it comes from me to my girls because ive had B/C. So ny men with daughters make sure they know and get screened when are at a certain age, of which i dont know as yet, maybe in their twenties but if i had my way it would be younger because im now worried for them in later life. Also there is no statistics for men diagnosed or that have past away with B/C. Im going to try to find these results because men are so unaware of B/C they live with the problem to there breast and so die because they leave it to LATE !!!
Lance
Hi Lance,
What another worry you have on top of need to care for your family as a single parent. Has anyone suggested gene testing your 15 year old girl at a later date?
I have though about asking for this for my daughter. I think there are lots of criteria to gene testing but you may be eligible. Mind you maybe you will think like me, do we want to worry them about what may or may not happen.
It all gets very complicated doesn’t it. By the way I just discussed BC in men with my husband and sons, they responded ’ Yes mum, we know that is a possibility, we just didn’t want to worry you by bringing up the subject’. I should have had faith really.
Cheers
Carol
Hi Nicky,
Sorry if I appear to have hijacked your thread to talk to Lance, I hope you can get a feel for the issues out there.
I am sorry you are living with cancer at such a young age, younger than one of my sons. My other son is very sensitive and looks after his poor old mum, you lads are worth your weight in gold!
Onwards and upwards Nicky, your future sounds bright.
Take care
Carol
Hi Nicky
I have not been on here for a while. my name is Mark and I am 37 so I thought I was one of the younger ones!!! Anyway Im glad to hear that you are on the road to full recovery. I have just read the Lance Armstrong books and they made me think about getting on my bike again so after my first check up in Jan im thinking of signing up to do the London Paris ride.
Lance, like you I want to promote it. I work in Whitehall and if I do the ride am gonna plaster my story all over our internal mags so 1. I get sponsors and 2. I raise awareness for the men.
Merry Christmas
mark
Hi Lance, Nicky & Mark
My name is Stephanie and I work in the Communications team at Breast Cancer Care. I have been following your thread and was interested to see that you all feel strongly about raising awareness of breast cancer in men. We are always keen to hear from men with breast cancer who would like to share their story so I wanted to let you know that we are currently looking for guys to apply to be in our Fashion Show in London in October. It is a very high profile event and so important in helping us to raise awareness of the experiences of people with breast cancer. If you are interested in applying you can follow this link to find out more: events.breastcancercare.org.uk/server/show/nav.74 . I know that some of the men who post here have been in the Show themselves and I’m sure they’ll tell you what an amazing day it is!
If you have any questions please do reply as I will keep checking back.
I look forward to hearing from you,
Best wishes,
Stephanie
Hi Stephanie,
It’s Lance sorry not been on for a while,with ref to your comment i’ve got through to the next stage of the fashion show and go to London next month and i think Nicky has also got to the same stage as myself,
thanks,Lance x
Lucky25 I need to talk to you I’m a 25 year old male and I might have BC. New to this website don’t know how to contact you. can I get an email?
Hello jonnoj,
Have you a facebook site?
Because im not to sure how to give you my email on this but go to face book (edited by moderator) and if you still have no joy ill come on here again but keep your head up and well talk defiantly!!!
Nicky