Hi everybody. My head is spinning - I found a growing mass of tissue on the skin just underneath my reconstructed breast, on the scar where the tube from the surgery used to be. I’m really worried that cancer is back. I’ve just started adjusting to the idea that I’m getting my life back on track… Can this be happening again!!!
This, obviously, is a rhetorical question. I feel like I need to ventilate but don’t want to worry my dear hubby. For the past two or three days I’ve been feeling breathless, lightheaded and tired.
This is my fist posting here. I’m 33 now, was diagnosed with stage 2 bc in January 2011, had 6 rounds of chemotherapy (FEC+T), mastectomy and ld flap reconstruction, and radiotherapy. On tamoxifen and leuprorelin.
I managed to hide my cancer from my son (now 10) because I dreaded having to tell him more than I dreaded cancer. If the cancer is back, don’t know how I am going to handle it again. I hate to bring this damn thing into my family…
Conveniently, my catch-up appointment with the oncologist is tomorrow. Only one more night…
I had a lumpectomy then a mastectomy, and a couple of months later found a lump at the end of my scar. I was like you and went into free fall, my consultant took a sample and the results came back as fatty tissue. My surgeon ‘then’ remembered that she had gone ‘back in’ to check my lymph nodes and must have caused the problem. It could be scar tissue which is very common.
I know that it is very easy to say try not to worry because everything at the moment is still very raw for you but try to remember that there are other things that it could be and scar tissue is one of them.
I know you prob won’t see this in time but many folk have scar tissue and fat necrosis following surgery and if you had radiotherapy it can cause distortion of tissue for months or years after surgery.
However recurrences do happen and your in the right place for support… If it is a recurrence you will cope… It’s horrible but you will get through it… Iv had BC three times within the last 6 years and it’s not nice but you would get there… Two of my freinds also had recurrences and just required additional surgery and radiotherapy but no other extra treatment.
Hope you’ll be clearer about what it is by now. If there is the slightest doubt, I expect you will have to have some tests, so you may not have a final answer yet.
If it is a recurrence then the best thing my onc. said to me when I got mine (in recon. breast) was ‘it is very treatable’. And it was.
Like everyone else, I hope it isn’t a recurrence. Please let us know.
Hello and thank you so much for your encouragement.
They checked the nodule with ultrasounds and took a needle aspiration biopsy to see what it is. The doctor said that the good part is that the lump is not tissue but a bulge with some thick fluid. She also said that she hasn’t seen anything like this before.
Now I wait until next Wednesday to find out the test results. I took the decision not to worry , at least not yet. If it comes to it, I will worry then. Life is too short, isn’t it?
Ic I had a lump with thick guncky fluid drained 18 months ago… It was a cyst called an inspissated cyst which has lots of debris in the fluid I don’t think they are that common… You also get something called a galactocele which is like a bulge with thick gunky milk like fluid.
Fingers crossed its something benign.
Lulu x
Edited to fix spelling as silly autocorrect thinks a glactocele is a galactic wle.
Ladies,
I am very happy (and relieved) to report that my lump is benign.
Lots of strength and courage to all of you who are fighting cancer now!
All the rest - stay healthy.
and your in the right place for support… If it is a recurrence you will cope… It’s horrible but you will get through it… Iv had BC three times within the last 6 years and it’s not nice but you would get there… Two of my freinds also had recurrences and just required additional surgery and radiotherapy but no other extra treatment.