Post-surgery newby

Hello, iv’e just had WLE & SNB on 12 Sept home same day was told i had 8mm tubular breast cancer (grade 1 biopsy). It’s taken a little while for me to come on here and write just keep reading every ones posts, am still quiet numb with it all my sister had DCIS 6 years ago also. I am worried but trying to stay possitive. I’m not looking forward to radiotherapy which i was told i will need for 5 weeks, i go back for results of tissue sampling on 29th Sept, the waiting is unbearable, any comments, advice or help would be great!.

Heather

Hi Heather,
On here we have all come to know and loathe waiting - it really is the worst bit of any of this I think. We can deal with what we know but not what we don’t know.

I had 25 rad zaps at the end of my treatment and it really was nothing to worry about. Boring traipsing back and forward every day but at least you got to know people to chat to if you wanted it. Painless, although I got slight ‘sunburn’ and by the end my skin was a little bit sore. A few people get quite significant fatigue but for most it is all very doable.

Try to not to imagine too much what they’ll say to you as you could worry yourself over nothing.

Hope you have a good weekend, or as good as you can anyway.

Take care and a gentle hug

Hi Heather,

Hi from me too. 29th September seems like a long wait, you’re right.
Treatments are so good these days - most of us will have a good outcome, but the waiting and worrying is the worst bit, as Revcat says.
Hope we can support you through all of this
Ann x

(diagnosed Jan/Feb this year, done chemo and lumpectomy, radiotherapy to go…)

Thank you both, i must say i am now visiting this site daily and find it helps a lot to read what others are going through too, cant believe how many people this horrid disease affect! I am feeling a little more human the last couple of days and have just starting doing my 2nd week of exercises, i am experiencing more discomfort under arm and down front top of my breast is still tender and tight is this the norm?

Thanks again x

Hi Heather,

I had my WLE & SNB three weeks ago today. I still have a weird sensation under my arms but no pain. Keep doing the excer excercises. Unfortunately I am due for another op on 7th so I will have to go through it all over again.

Barbara x

H ventura1

I think it’s normal to feel bruised, tight and sore after surgery. I too wasn’t expecting to feel so sore. The pins and needles are really horrible I remember. Pins and needles don’t really do it justice, elsewhere on this forum I’ve described it as being feeling like attacked by a cheese grater. It does get better but takes a while. Or mine did,
I found stroking the area, over my shirt/t shirt/ pyjamas, gently, up towards the armpit, really helpful in helping to settle the nerve endings.

hi folks

i’m going for surgery on friday, have a question: how soon after is it feasible to go back to work? i’m having WLE and full node clearance. my boss is starting to ask when i’ll be back. i’ve told him i’m starting chemo afterwards, not sure how long the gap will be, and a part of me would like to use that time to recover and build strength for chemo. any advice?

judes xx

Hello Heather

Welcome to you from another tubular carcinoma person - 6mm - 16 months ago in my case. I have no lymph node involvement.
Have you had anyone say to you yet if you have breast cancer then tubular is the best one to have or that it is a trivial cancer? I get that an awful lot and sometimes its comforting and other times I don’t feel so lucky! Like you I had a WLE. I ended up having NO chemo and NO hormonal therapy. I crunched my histopathology report results in Adjuvant! Online [just register as a Dr and you can access it all - its not illegal] and ended up with great stats. They were so good I did not believe them to be true so padded off to the Oncologist who twirled his chair around to his computer, logged into Adjuvant! Online, inputted the same path stats and came out with the same results as I had. He strongly recommended no chemo and no hormones. It was stats really. They could only help me 33% of my risk of this killing me, which was 1% so 0.33% however the morbidity and mortality were in the 10% + territory. In other words, the treatment would harm me significantly more than the risk of the disease killing me. He said the greatest risk I faced with tubular cancer was over treatment. I ended up not having any radiation either as I had 95% no recurrence of the breast cancer without it but a full 6 week course of RT would only benefit me by 2% - up to 97%. I was not going to radiate myself for a measly 2% benefit.
If you are interested in reading more about excellent prognosis of tubular carcinoma then I recommend the following:
Tubular Carcinoma of the Breast: Further Evidence to Support Its Excellent Prognosis
Emad A. Rakha, Andrew H.S. Lee, Andrew J. Evans, Sindhu Menon, Nancy Y. Assad, Zsolt Hodi, Douglas Macmillan, Roger W. Blamey, Ian O. Ellis
Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vol 28, No 1 (January 1), 2010: pp. 99-104
© 2010 American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Hi Cocococo and thanks for that, i went for results last week after my surgery and they are now saying ductal no spec type but my surgeon said it was behaving like tubular so am not sure now if it tubular although biopsy said so! I did get good clear margins and no lymph involvement which i am so relieved, my surgeon did say “if there is a good one to have this is the one!” and he has said the stats / prognosis in my case are excellent with me having no greater chance than any one else who hasn’t had BC! I have just started on tamoxifen and am waiting planning for radiotherapy which due to having large boobs will have to be 5 weeks instead of 3 which i am not looking forward to. It would be nice to hear some positive comments with regrads Tamoxifen and SE.

Heather

jUDES , Go back to work when you feel like it as you are now the most important thing. I worked a few days between my surgery and first chemo which helped me as I was not sitting thinking and there is only so much C**P tv you can watch and have managed to work for
about six days between bouts.Week one is sleeping week and I was not fit to do anything, week two/three I felt better and was able to work. I am going for my third chemo next week but am taking each day as it comes.The only advice I can give is listen to your body and rest when you need to. My boss has been great and I can work at home a lot of the time which helps as I can do odd hours and have lots of breaks.
Take care of yourself.
FiXXX