I’m not sure I’m doing this right but just needed to offload some thoughts as in my head I’m spinning out. I found a lump on 20th March. On Monday I have pre op for therapeutic mamoplasty on Thursday this week. When I found the lump I’d never felt fitter, recovering from rotator cuff surgery in January, just back to the gym. Now I feel like I can’t even be sure I’ll be here next year. I feel aches and pains and twinges all over. My consultant has said it’s early and treatable but in my head I’m thinking this is worse than you know and too late. My mum died 26 years ago and I still remember the awful consultant who brought her round after a general and just said, well you know it’s bad don’t you. My consultant is lovely but it’s all uncovered a lot of memories I’d hidden. I’m just terrified. Is it normal to feel this way. I’m trying to distract myself but there’s an intrusive voice in my head that just says ‘I have cancer’, literally my biggest fear and I can’t run from it and I can’t control anything. Sorry that all sounds like a lunatic. My husband is with me and he is very supportive but says listen to the consultant stop jumping to worst case. I don’t know my post op treatment yet, I just think they’ll find it’s worse and I know I have another 2-3 weeks of waiting just to be told that. I’d like to find a volunteer match but everyone seems to know exactly what they’re dealing with and I don’t. I’m 59, and suddenly planning anything seems wildly optimistic. Any coping advice?
Hello @userm44 its nice to meet you, so sorry it has to be here on this forum. You’ve found a really great space though for people going through exactly what you are, and people who have recovered from exactly what you have. Real people and real stories.
Can you give us some more details of your cancer? This way others in your shoes will be able to offer you better advice 
Everything you feel is normal especially given your history. I’m so sorry you lost your mum 
Just worth keeping in mind right now, you are the most stressed and anxious a person can be and that directly effects your body. All your muscles will tense, you nervous system is on high alert. If you stubbed your toes right now it would hurt more than usual. All these pains and aches you are finding will likely be exactly that. Tension. No prodding and poking anything.
Its not helpful for anyone to tell you to relax because your mind is moving at a million miles an hour but try not to focus so much on these aches and pains. Do what ever you can to try and relax your body. Hot baths with bath salts, essential oil massage, nice scented candles. Whatever makes you relax. For me it was walking outside, I walked miles during my diagnosis stage. And I learned to play Yatzee, that kept me very busy early days. Distractions are key
Thank you I appreciate the kind words more than anything. I’m terrified to Google anything so haven’t! My consultant letter says Grade 2 ER8, PR5, HER2 1+ low, KC67 25%. And I don’t understand any of it. The breast care nurse I’ve been dealing with is great but on holiday this last week, I hope to catch up with her on Monday. Just feeling like the rug has been pulled from under me, literally just worked out a retirement date and plans and it’s like someone said plans are not for you now. I know I’m feeling sorry for myself. My friends are dear but look at me like they’re about to cry and I can’t make them feel better when I feel this way. I’m always the strong, controlled and organised one. Thank you for hearing me out, I’m sure everyone feels the same. x
It’s completely normal to feel as you do. I have had these moments without the added distress of having lost a family member to it. Undoubtedly this is uncovering some deep and painful times for you. Have you been offered counselling? If not, I’d recommend it and your BCN can sort that for you. It won’t cost you either. Also, check in with ‘Someone Like Me’ as they will be able to match you with someone with a similar lived experience. This proved invaluable to me.
Of course you don’t know what you’re dealing with, it’s so very bewildering for you and many of us would say we’ve experienced the same emotions. So we can be a good source of support alongside that of the trained professionals. Also, never feel you can’t ring your BCN, they are there to listen to you concerns. xxx
Hi
So sorry to hear how you are feeling but it is perfectly normal and so many of us are or have been where you are now. I’m recently diagnosed. I had my therapeutic mammoplasty 3 weeks ago now. Had my results which came back close to the margin and cancer in the lymph nodes. I have to go back and have a cavity shave (bit more taken) and lymph nodes removed. I feel like I’m back to square one but with a worse prognosis. So I do understand in some respect how you feel. Every twinge, it’s spread. In my bones, lungs (because I coughed) and brain because I’ve had a few headaches. Obviously this is my own brain making this up but like you I’m straight to worse case scenario. Your husband is correct that you should listen to your doctors. They are the experts but it’s also ok to feel like you do. Keep posting on here. There are so many people feeling like you. On the plus size, my breast after surgery is like that of a 20 year old. Uplifted and perky ha ha. My fingers are crossed for you that everything goes to plan.
You are so kind to reply, so thank you, I do feel like I’m going slightly mad! I’m so sorry you have to go back again, and I wish you all the best, I’m hyper aware this is just the start, and it’s not a journey any of us want to be one. I don’t think I’ve ever been perky and uplifted, even in my twenties, so maybe there’s hope! Sending love. x
@userm44 I am so sorry to hear the news, what you are feeling is completely normal. I felt the same at the time I was diagnosed because of my Mother’s diagnosis and outcome. The waiting for a treatment plan is the hardest thing to go through and it can feel like a ticking timebomb.
My coping strategy was to therefore set aside what had happened in the past and think about the present, concentrating on myself and my diagnosis and as others have said finding a way that works for you in distracting yourself. I did this by noting down all my hospital appointment dates through diagnosis to treatment, each time I reached one of those dates I treated myself to something nice each time. I asked lots of questions of my consultants so that I could put my diagnosis and treatment into perspective. I therefore hope you find a way that works for you and wish you all the best.
Thank you. I’m still working pre op so that distracts me a bit in the week. I do find comfort in writing things down and I am the queen of spreadsheets so perhaps I just need to organise myself instead of spinning! It’s been so nice just to hear from others who understand and don’t think I’m completely potty, so thank you for taking the time, it’s appreciated more than you all know. xx
Hi @userm44 you are experiencing a very common reaction to being told that you have breast cancer and somehow we are programmed to jump to the worst case scenario even though we get some reassurance from the medical experts and there is empirical data that shows that a large majority of women go through treatment and come out the other side. The fact of the matter is no-one dies of primary breast cancer and, yes, I get that you are convinced that yours has spread but until the unlikely event that you are told it has, it hasn’t. Your personal experience with your Mum will inform a lot of your reaction and it might be worth talking to your GP about help - talking therapy or a short course of something - to get you over the hump. Well done for staying away from Google, so much of it is out of date and wouldn’t apply to your specific situation anyway. You have a grade 2 er+ pr+ cancer, the most common kind which is well understood and has a proven treatment path. Everyone has a slightly different experience with active treatment so generalizing isn’t that helpful but there’s a ton of testament on this forum which says it’s usually not as bad as expected. If you would find it helpful to talk to an experienced breast cancer nurse, who has more time to chat through things with you than our wonderful NHS nurses have time to do, call our nurses on 0808 800 6000 from 9am on Monday, they don’t rush you and I think you’d feel a lot more reassured afterwards. It is universally acknowledged that you are in the worst phase now when it all so new and shocking yet you don’t have any facts to hang on to. It’s awful but it will pass and you can get your head down, getting through the treatment prescribed specifically to stop this thing spreading, getting it gone for good. Big hugs.
Hello there @userm44
I’m sorry that you are here in this position . I’m a few years down the line now but I can relate to everything you have said .
The feeling of being out of control , of waiting for strangers to tell you what you have to do next when you have been used to ordering your own life is very hard indeed and it makes It almost impossible to plan ahead and very hard to be able to think of anything else. Time plays tricks on you - what might in other circumstances seem an acceptable if inconvenient wait seems interminable . The best advice I can give you is to take one day at a time , try to build something into every day that you love and hold onto that thing in your mind until the next day when you can do something else else that is lovely . For me before my procedures and as a goal to get back to afterwards that was swimming Yoga classes being out in nature and with certain friends and family .
One of my friends who had breast cancer over 10 years ago ( and is ok ) said to me “ I had to rescue everyone I told “ and I also had this experience with a couple of people - I found myself telling them that I was ok , it had been found early and to my elderly Dad “ well it’s not going to kill me it’s just going to be a bloody nuisance “ when I felt anything but ok - the fact that I could be flippant about it seemed to reassure him . It was most surreal but I developed this “I’m fine I’m lucky “ response to cut off further questions . Hopefully you friends will see that you’re going to be ok ( you are by the way ) but if anyone behaves inappropriately or upsets you than you may have to either tell them how you feel or see less of them . Some of us have had odd experiences with friends and family ghosting them and then wandering back when treatment is over - it sounds as though yours are still there at least .
Like @foxgem I also suffered with the twinges you are experiencing - I knew in my rational mind that it was probably just a hypersensitivity to things I would probably not even notice . You lose trust in your body so you are subconsciously monitoring it . All my twinges miraculously disappeared after surgery .
I think it’s a good thing that you aren’t googling right now as it can make you more stressed and until you know what you’re dealing with it can be feeding you information that won’t apply to you or that’s out of date . I would always recommend to speak to the Nurses on The Helpline if you’re - they will be open again at 9am on Monday on 0808 800 6000.
Try to remember that your thoughts are just your thoughts - they are not real . My Mindfulness teacher advised that’s it’s impossible not to think of anything at all however hard you try. The trick is to take slow deep breaths into your belly and concentrate on your breathing - when those thoughts come in acknowledge that they are there and that they will come back but don’t follow them / don’t get involved in an internal movie or get annoyed with yourself for not being able to stop them . It’s not easy to learn when you’re so stressed but if you manage it you do get a bit of perspective .
Finally I’m so sorry about your Mum . My Mum died 7 months before I was diagnosed and during lockdown from pneumonia complicated by several other chronic medical conditions . I knew that she didn’t have much longer to live but the pathway that she was on did not make sense .I got regular updates from Drs. which could come at any time of day ( so I felt I couldn’t do anything in case they rang ) but I could never speak to a Nurse . They knew she was dying but wouldn’t put her on the end of life pathway which would have allowed me to visit because she was too well and they wouldn’t discharge her to her care home which was what she wanted because she was too sick even though there was nothing they could do for her in hospital . Finally I was able to speak to the Ward Sister and we managed to get her back to her home and I was able to spend some time with her before she died.
While I was waiting for treatment I kept thinking of that time at the end of Mum’s life I got angry about it all over again and had another wave of grief then my mind would flash back to my diagnosis . Luckily we have a mental health helpline via work and I rang and was able to speak to someone which helped me to break the cycle. It’s not surprising that your diagnosis has triggered you - it’s the same sort of devastating news and the same lack of control over events and your life BUT your situation is different . If you need to speak to someone about how you are feeling then reach out to because there is no time limit on grief unfortunately .
If you’ve made it to the end of my very long post then I hope it’s been of some help and sending love to you. Xxx
Hello. I have received test results on hospital app then copying and putting on goole then AI. Yes I will say has explained a few things clearer but . Im not searching google or media posts for info. Treatment has so improved even since 5 years. Write down questions ask to speak to someone. We all think and feel this way you are not alone, big hugs xxx
Thank you I can’t believe how kind and helpful everyone is. I’m definitely having an anxious day, when you can just feel that adrenaline spike, and it is helping to read everyone’s kind thoughts and advice. I’m so sorry about your mum, it’s the hardest thing, and I know this is all bringing a lot of things back to the surface that I’d carefully tucked away. I suspect I’ll need to address all that at some point. Thank you for taking the time to respond, it means so much. xx
Thank you. I always seem to have extra anxiety ‘out of hours’, typical isn’t it. I will investigate more help. Really everything you say makes sense, I’m just not being very rational at the moment which I’m acutely aware of, so it really helps to offload here. Thank you for taking time. x
Honestly, the best thing you could do for yourself now is prepare your body for surgery and any other treatment path they may prescribe. You mentioned that you are fit and actively exercise - keep it up, eat healthily, cry off from alcohol if you drink it, get good quality sleep and try to control the cortisol that must be coursing through your body at the moment. The fitter and healthier you are the better the recovery will be. Which is why, if you can find a toolkit to control your anxiety, it will help enormously. You’d already be doing something positive to help get this gone. 65% of women with BC don’t have to have chemo, whether you will or not only time will tell, but with er+ BC you may be offered radiotherapy. It’s much easier than chemo and much shorter program but often has a side effect of fatigue for a short while. You will almost certainly be prescribed endocrine therapy for a number of years. This all sounds surreal and insurmountable at the moment but it is doable and done by thousands of women every year, and it is made more doable by getting your body and mind in the best shape possible. Sorry if this sounds like tough love but understanding this helps give you back a bit of control which I think is what you need right now.
Hi there, so sorry to hear of your diagnosis and I’m also sorry about your mum. It’s understandable that your diagnosis has brought up some feelings around that and what it means for your own prognosis.
I was diagnosed in November 2025 and it was like I’d just decided to start redecorating the house only for a fire to break out! I had a lumpectomy and sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) in December the same year with clear results received in January but I’m still awaiting an appointment with an oncologist to discuss the course of “mop-up” chemo that has been recommended to me and it has put me very much in a limbo state. I have major improvements I want to make to my life, but it’s now like even though the house fire has been put out, I can’t start rebuilding yet because I feel like I’m waiting for someone else to give me the go ahead so I totally understand feeling out of control. But hey, you’ve got to live in the meantime right, so what do you do?
What I do is fill my day with things I love as much as possible. I don’t do them as distractions or with any sort of goal in mind but for pure enjoyment and the reduction of stress and anxiety or achieving a goal tend to occur as a natural side effect. It doesn’t have to be anything big. Yesterday I laid on the sofa and watched Thelma & Louise for the 1000th time, had a good cry at the end, loved every minute of it and felt great after! If I do do something I don’t want to do in order to achieve something else and am unable to change the situation (e.g. I’m currently unhappy with my job but getting a new one doesn’t feel practical right now and I need to earn money), I try to find something within that thing that brings me joy such as taking the opportunity throughout the day to chat with colleagues I like.
I’ve also learned not to be afraid of negative feelings. They’re there to inform and to guide. I’m fine to cry, scream, mope or whatever floats my boat and it doesn’t last forever.
Other people are trickier to navigate obviously. The closest people to me have shown that they really just want to hear that “I’m fine and all’s well!” and telling them anything different just tends to invoke resistance so that’s what I give them now and accept the other kinds of support they can provide, which tend to be of a more practical nature. I express my real feelings elsewhere where I know they will be validated, like in counselling and on here!
I really hope you find a way of navigating your diagnosis, treatment and recovery that works for you. It will be a bumpy road and there’s no doubt about that! But I hope the replies you’ve received here have shown that you at least don’t need to travel down that road alone! x
I so identify with how you describe trying to rescue those you tell . You put this so well. For me , there is an element of making them feel better but also it’s so hard to witness their panic and fear and so to minimise it makes me feel better too and protects me from their response . It’s complicated but so important to have a place - which is why counselling and therapy is so good - where I can say exactly how I feel . Also as you say mindfulness and meditation is a god-send . Thank you - Penny x
So sorry you are suffering right now, but it will get better once you start treatment. I was where you now are back in October, it had spread to my bones and even to the lining of my stomach. Now, almost 6 months on Letrozol (hormone suppressant) everything is shrinking, no visible cancer in my stomach now, spine is absorbing calcium, breast tumour shrinking dramatically. I will be on this medication for 5 years, then they will review things and maybe I will be on it 5 more years, or they may give me another one. Anyway, my oncologist is very positive so that makes me very positive too. A close friend who is a nurse working in the field of cancer drug development has said that I have been diagnosed at the best possible time as they are advancing fast and several other drugs are in trials right now. Take care and hang in there, you are definitely not alone. And listen to your husband and doctor, no surfing Google, just try to stay calm and do things you enjoy that will distract you. I am still working full time.
Hi - only just saw your post - hope you’re feeling ok after your pre-op. You didn’t say what your type of breast cancer but your markers apart from that are exactly the same as mine: 16 mm IDC grade 2 er8 pr5 her2 1. I had a lumpectomy and slnb 22/12/25 followed by 15 days of radiotherapy. I have started letrozole and have my pre-assessment for ribociclib tomorrow and my first infusion of Zolendric acid next week. Please feel free to ask any questions if I can help. I am 65 so a little bit older. I hated waiting for results etc and I think it’s perfectly normal to feel like this. I read something which I wrote down to try to focus on ‘What do I know right now’ to try to stop me catastrophising but remember everyone does this at some stage. I found it helped me to try on the whole to focus on what I could change ie eating well, some exercise etc. At least you have a nice consultant - I didn’t really click with mine. Good luck on Thursday x
Thank you for taking the time. I’m still feeling shell shocked I think. I’ve gone literally from the gym to patient in 3 weeks, I still struggle to understand that. Pre op went fine. I have an isotope injection in one hospital at 8:30 Thursday then straight on to the other hospital for the operation. It’s going to be a long day but I just want to get on with it. Working today and tomorrow, feels odd to be writing handovers not quite knowing how long for or what’s going to happen. Normally it’s for holidays, now I don’t want to acknowledge that I don’t know. I do really appreciate the kind words and helpful tips from everyone. You’ve all been lovely. Thank you. x
Hello user@44
I can totally understand your thoughts.
You are not alone 
I too have only recently found out I have Breast Cancer. My feelings full of fear and paranoia that the cancer has spread. I was fit and healthy, enjoying life. I try to not over think, took up knitting at 59 again… it seems to help.
These thoughts and feelings are all very normal.
I don’t have any medical knowledge on the terminology within Breast Cancer. Had my lumpectomy and nodes removed 9 days ago. Just know I have Grade 2 and ER+ waiting for results from surgery 
But I can talk with you, share our path, if that would help.
Hope everything goes well with your op
Jo x