…does this sound odd?
I’ve still not got a definate start date for chemo, but am penciled in to meet the oncology sister on monday with chance of starting tuesday… The lump and nodes will be delt with after chemo with a lumpectomy.
I’m not happy with having sugery, and got so wound up when I was sterilised a few years back, that they put me first on the list to get rid of me, lol. It’s the anesthetic, i’m terrified of. It’s goes back to when I was a little girl.
I know that if it doesn’t all go the first time, then they’ll want to have another look, which would mean more surgery and more distress. I’m wondering if maybe they could take the breast and the nodes in the form of a mastectomy and be done with?
Does that sound too easy? x
Hello there, sorry you have this dilemma. If the Oncology sister is good she should be able to talk to you about managing your nerves - seems a bit of a shame to go for more radical surgery simply cos of anaesthetic fear. Having said that I am terrified of heights - after years of seeking help I went for hypnotherapy - reall really didn;t think it would help and its like magic, no problem at all now…
I do know that they can give you drugs to make you calm before you even get near the anaesthetic bit, maybe thats an option too.
HOpe you get a good nurse to discuss it with, bw Nicola
They have all sorts of nifty ideas for relaxing you these days - as Nicola says, the nurse will be able to tell you what they can do.
Sometimes they like to be able to keep the lump there during Chemo as it gives them lots of info (how fast it reacts to the chemo etc) to help them use chemo the best possible way. Otherwise they are having to guess what might work best, which isn’t as accurate. So they’ll want to work with you to find something you can cope with easily.
I am having my chemotherapy first so that they can have a look at how my lump reacts the chemotherapy and how much they can shrink it down, my first reaction was that i wanted surgery first and the lump out of my body but i suppose we gotta go with what they say they the experts after all.