Hi, I’ve just recently been diagnosed with invasive lobular cancer and have a lump in my left breast. I am extremely tired, although I haven’t even started any treatment yet. I spoke to the cancer nurse and she said that you don’t usually get tired with cancer until the later stages- I wonder what other people’s experience is?
Also, She told me that the cancer would be staged and graded after the lump was removed but I thought they did it before that?
Any help/ information regarding this would be much appreciated
Sorry to hear you’ve been diagnosed and that you have joined this club of great women. Lots of support and advice here…
When you say tired, do you mean tired since finding your lump and getting it checked out/diagnosed? The stress of not knowing and shock of diagnosis can make even the best of us feel tired. As I’m sure you are aware tiredness can come from stress, not sleeping re worry, or physically being unwell.
The bc will be staged and graded. From the initial mammogram, ultrasound and biopsy they can identify the size of lump and type of bc in the tissue they’ve tested. When they remove the actual lump, they will remove this with a margin around it. They then test the lump and the tissue in the margin (since tiny changes at the cellular level can’t always be spotted on the scan). They usually also do a sentinel node biopsy of the key lymph node/s under your arm. It is only once they’ve done both of those things that they can clarify the grade and stage of bc.
If you want to read a bit more information about grade and stage please see
I hope that explains why they can’t give you the full picture after the initial biopsy.
Please be aware you can also contact the BCN nurse via the ask a nurse section on the forum or by phoning the telephone number (top right hand side of screen).
Do post again if you need any help or support. I’m sure others will reply soon.
I agree that your tiredness is likely to be stress. A cancer diagnosis is a huge assault on our mind, our emotions, our sense of safety, let alone what may be done to the body. So be gentle on yourself. Get some fresh air with a gentle walk and just look after yourself for now. You might explore YouTube for videos that address tiredness and/or fatigue - I found some great ones for anxiety that saw me brought everything.
My personal feeling is that you need to go by your hospital Multi-Disciplinary Team’s protocols. Mine, for instance, never gives stages, only grades - and it’s a regional centre of excellence. I haven’t asked why because my way of dealing with the treatment was by choosing to know as little as possible and trust them to do their best. I’m a little braver now and ask questions that need to be asked but, when I went through chemo etc, I didn’t need to know. I was just dealing with the inevitable.
The fact is, everybody is different. Every case is unique and we each find our own ways of dealing with what’s thrown our way. Different hospitals have different protocols (I was shocked when I first read on here of someone having chemo before surgery - it sounded so cruel when I’d been told immediately after my surgery that I was cancer-free and the adjuvant treatments that followed would aim to keep me that way - but I understand there are advantages doing it both ways, depending on the circumstances). My diagnosis changed four times, the 4th after surgery, so what your breast-care nurse told you makes sense. Try to keep away from Google (much of which is outdated, alarming and certainly doesn’t allow for your emotional state) and avoid anything that throws doubts into your mind. You really do need to trust your MDT now to do their very best for you.
I wish you all the best as you deal with this challenging experience but I promise you, it’s all manageable.