Hi frazzled, sorry I didn’t read this until you’d removed the dressing. Well done on doing it!
Thank you for replying about the radiotherapy and your encouragement, much appreciated. I saw the consultant yesterday for probably two minutes. He didn’t seem remotely surprised that I only had a bad skin reaction on my chest and nothing in my axilla and said I had had the nodes done. I still don’t feel 100 per cent reassured but what else can I do?
Really hope you get your results sooner rather than later. It certainly seems to vary from hospital to hospital.
Hi Pinklili
Sorry to hear you’ve been having a rough time. Perhaps it would be a good idea to wait a bit longer for radiotherapy, give your body a chance to repair? Hope they get to the bottom of the shivering. Since chemo I seem either very cold or very hot, not sure if that’s something you other ladies are experiencing?
Very happy to report eyelashes and eyebrows almost back to normal. Hair looks like a badger skinhead, but it is returning!!
Rest well
xx
Hi Daffodil indeed, I think my body needs more time, feeling rough this week, think it’s the aftermath of everything.
Doctor put me back on the dreaded steroids, a low dose and short course. It’s a love and hate relationship. They do give me a bit of a boost but then I crash. Cause it’s all artificial and I feel my body needs to adjust and climb out of this whole naturally and try to find it’s balance rather pumping it w meds. Equally if it sort my appetite out and gets me moving, I may feel warmer and my hair may stop falling. Eyelash and eyebrows are also nearly back
I see oncologist Friday.
On a different topic, an awesome good news, am an auntie!! My brother and wife gave birth to a lovely little girl called Louise
@plum1 glad everything is healed enough for you to go ahead with surgery. I hope the pre-surgery appointments and the surgery on Saturday go well. I took your advice re: kitchen roll and today everything is a bit less sore again so that’s good. This time next week you’ll be on the other side and on the mend from the next stage. It took longer than I thought. I had a friend last year who had a lumpectomy and was back at work in two days. I am either made of less strong stuff or had something different as it has taken me two weeks to feel anywhere near facing it. Think I’d be back tomorrow if it wasn’t for the fact i managed to get a cold just after the surgery. Hoping to be back again next week. So if they ask if you want a sick note when you are in for the surgery i would say ask for two weeks minimum.
@pinklilli3s sorry to hear about your scare but it sounds like your team was on it fast and you got good news. It sounds sensible to give yourself a bit more recovery time before radiation. I finished chemo in Jan and i definitely don’t feel like i can tackle the next step for a few more weeks. I too have a cold. Think our bodies are telling us to rest.
@daffodil1 glad you got some reassurance even if you don’t feel 100% sure. Think our collective experiences have somewhat knocked our confidence in medical professionals. I too have a bit of a badger skinhead going on. Still more scalp showing than hair but hopefully heading the right way.
Love to you all. Hopefully Spring and Summer will bring some recovery and relief for all of us.
Thank you- had the extra tracers and dye in this morning, it wasn’t so bad, I think I still have the horrible biopsy experience in mind and luckily everything else is much more tolerable by comparison. Popping back tomorrow to check it’s still beeping or whatever it’s meant to be doing before my Phesgo and ECG and then all systems go for Sat!
I’ve actually been in the office for most of the day today since I was already in town, was really nice to see everyone and catch up with my team, everyone seems to be having a bit of a wobble so possibly well timed! And it’s a nice distraction too.
Thanks for the advice re: the time off. I guess we have to remember that every lumpectomy is unique, even within this thread there are so many variations in treatment plan and pathology, and we all react differently to anaesthetic too. That may be the thing that’s had the bigger impact on how you are feeling. I know it’s easy to compare but I’m sure they struggled with some aspect that you may have found less challenging. I didn’t suffer too badly through the chemo apart from steroid insomnia, and felt really bad reading that others were having reactions and were in and out of hospital in the autumn, but then I ended up on my arse with the sepsis and the abcess in Jan, so it got me eventually! I’ll definitely take what I need, just want to be able to do a bit from my sofa if I feel up to it.
@pinklilli3s i think you definitely deserve a break, you hardly had any time to recover from chemo and especially since it made you feel so rough. Hopefully the steroids can give you the boost you need to get back towards feeling yourself, especially if they will help with appetite etc.?
I wish you all the best for the operation and well done for going to the office! What a woman!
Thank for the words of encouragement. I am resting especially since I got this cold. I do better with a routine and I am lacking that at the moment, cause I struggle to get up w thyroid issues and am so tired post chemo and post op. I am taking the steroids but I still struggle w my appetite and am really sad that I am loosing my hair still now, what an irony after so many hours under the cold cap!!! I hope the blood test results shed some light on what is going on. I am hoping the steroids kick in and boost my appetite but my stomach has shrunk so much am struggling eating even a full meal! A friend of mine said she felt better 2 months post chemo and also saw an improvement 4 months post chemo and she has her op 5 weeks after that. The time line was squashed for and that’s always what I feared would happen that I crash. So in a way am glad I was right because that means I know my body really well but equally am glad 2 out of 3 are over with.
Seeing the oncologist Friday and let’s see what the bloods say. It may just be a question of time…
Thank you and congratulations on being a new auntie! Hopefully you have a visit and some cuddles to look forward to!
Can you try to do some scheduled rest? Perhaps some very low physical effort activities but have them planned so you don’t feel aimless? What about an online course or something to keep you occupied but quite still? Any interesting documentaries on your list? (And trash tv of course!)
Thank you. They’re all in France so that probably adding to my frustration of wanting to be there but not being able to be there. I’ll go there eventually.
I’ve had some many operations in the past and I would be following a physio program. I am going to ask the oncologist that I get referred to a physio. Cause it’s not like I can just jump back on a horse after all this time off I don’t know what is it I can and can’t do and am known to have overdone it in the past so am being careful and bitting my time watching trash TV! The apprentice celebrity Australia is definitely right up there atm series 2 is violent drama wise, all on BBC iPlayer!!!
Am going to pick up the dog walking and boarding. Except for the ad hoc dog walking, dogs I knew I could let off the leash, I just had a strict two weeks and half weeks of no dog boarding to give me a force rest, I marked my services unavailable. I may resume dog boarding this weekend and probably will give me the greater good to get back into a rhythm. Am hoping I get to the yard at some point. I’ve been delaying in on purpose so I can heal, avoiding any risk of being hit in the boob which would not be great! (And any temptation of wanting to ride ) Hopefully i move a bit more once this cold is over too. Meeting a friend for coffee tomorrow in Windsor, will be good to get out
@plum1 I hope yesterday went okay and you are starting your recovery well today.
@pinklilli3s I hope you are starting to feel better from your cold and your coffee with a friend gave you a boost. My cold is lingering and I seem to get random new post chemo symptoms every day. My thigh muscles are so weak I find it hard to get off the sofa, my arm aches all the time and yesterday all my teeth started aching. I have to keep reminding myself of the things that have got better like my twitching eye which has gone away. Bl**dy hell. This treatment business is so hard. Clinging onto the hope it is all temporary. I hope you get some clues from the doctors about your appetite. It must be so hard forcing yourself to eat when you don’t want to. As ever love to everyone. Let’s hope for a good week next week.
Thank you! Surgeon was happy with everything, I still have a nipple (it was up for debate as to if it could be saved due to proximity of tumour) and just have to keep an eye on everything until I see him in clinic on Thursday. Have seen the physio, waiting on an injection and lunch but I’ve been told I can get dressed and get ready to be evicted early afternoon xx
Hiya @frazzledmcsazza this cold is lingering here too . I stopped the steroids and the cold came back in force. Blood tests are ok tg. As ok as they can be at this stage meaning that I need time to recover. I got a month off before radiotherapy. I’ve got a dog w me this weekend, it is her first time away from home and she cried through the night, am so tired!! But she’s really sweet and I’ve never seen a dog who loves a sofa so much, she gets excited when we return home from our walk and I sit down w her
I hope that walking 3 times a day w the dog will kick start my appetite, food doesn’t excite me since the op which is mad. Still loosing my hair, a little less but still it’s falling, and so I feel you when it comes to post chemo side effects.
We have to hand in there and looking forward to side effects free days! @plum1 how are you feeling? xxx
@frazzledmcsazza I’m nearly 3 months post chemo and still having side effects, but not sure if it was the radiotherapy or Letrozole. So hard to pin down the issue. It’s so hard. Had my Herceptin injection this week and then I feel rough ( like flu) for a few days. I was really teary on Friday because I’d had the best two weeks in months and then I was so debilitated after the injection. So many think my treatment is over and should be feeling better. I am better than I was but I’ve lost muscle mass and strength, my joints ache, swollen ankles, rib pain ( radiotherapy). I feel like I’m 80 not 55. Have you got an appointment for your follow up? I was seen 2/3 weeks after surgery, so I would give them a call and check
I also had another counselling session when we talked about a friend of over 20 years who had texted me only a few times since June last year. The counsellor encourage me to contact her and explain my feelings with no blame. I wrote a text saying how hurt I’ve been with lack of contact and that with my treatment I may not have been able to think or have the energy to contact other people. She responded that she had texted a couple of times and I hadn’t replied. She thought I didn’t want to deal with people.
The counsellor had said most people would say let’s get together and talk which would be positive or say they’ve been busy or blame me for not contacting her. Well I got the last one. Funny isn’t it how others think they’ve done nothing wrong. I’m the one that was ill but I didn’t contact her. I’m not even sure where she’s living as she was moving and I hadn’t had her new address, I still live in the same place. It reminds me of something I read about what no to say to people with cancer.
‘Let your friend know it’s okay if he or she doesn’t reply or want to talk’ from https://cancercareparcel.com/what-to-say-to-someone-who-has-cancer/
So many others knew that I didn’t always reply or talk and that was ok. So grateful to all you lovely people who have supported me through my treatment and continue to check in.
Hope everyone is ok and looking forward to Spring and less rain!
@pinklilli3s that is good news about the bloods even if it doesn’t give you any answers. I think the lingering cold might just be because our immune systems are not working at full power. They’ll get there in the end. Your temporary dog looks cute. I am super impressed by your three walks a day. I have been managing one and for the last week it has not been very far but I think i need to up my game. I read this week we should be aiming for 10,000 steps a day. I am very very far from that.
@plum1 so glad surgery went well and you have had the best result you could with nipple saved and surgeon happy. I hope the pain is not too bad. Am quite jealous of all your appointments. My surgery was on 22nd and I haven’t seen anyone since! Our treatments are so variable depending on where we live. Its crazy. Good luck with the first week. I hope you find it okay and have plenty of support for cooking etc.
Sorry I’m a bit behind with the chat and where everyone is at. Hope you’re doing as well as can be and if not getting some help! I’ve been back to work these last few weeks . It’s been a baptism of fire. Everything is a mess and rather than ease back in gently I’ve had to work long hours nearly every day. Had enough today when my daughter’s friend sent me books and homemade brownies in the post. I just burst into tears. Thinking what am I doing working like this? I should be reading books, walking the dog and exercising, cooking good food, resting and looking after myself more. Probably went back too soon. I’m self employed so was worried about leaving it too long.
@naughty_boob so sorry about your friend. You have done nothing wrong and have reached it to her. I think we all have people behave like that. And others who we least expect to show great support. So important going forward to surround ourselves with kind and supportive people. Definitely some people I won’t be having in my life in the future.
@pinklilli3s gorgeous dog! Hope you get your appetite back. It’s one of life’s joys enjoying food. And you need to fuel those walks!
@copperycat well done for going back to work. I suppose being self employed makes it harder to ease back in. I hope you are able to work out a balance. What a lovely gift you received.
I have reassessed my life and work. I’ve taught in school covering for teachers planning time for nearly 20 years. There is an expectation of regular commitment attendance (not conducive with hospital appointments and treatment) and I already felt like I let people down when I’m ill before cancer. I have even provided lessons for supply teachers to cover me. My brain isn’t functioning so well and with fatigue and menopausal symptoms so I have taken redundancy. It was accepted this week, I feel so relieved. I had considered it last year and chose not to but I feel it’s right now. I read an article about convalescence (shared from the June starters above) and that’s what I need. I have a friend who keeps reminding me to listen to my body and I’m taking that on board.
That sounds like you have given it a lot of consideration and arrived at a good decision. I wish you well with it and that it helps with your recuperation. I’m seriously considering that myself . Have you a link to the article about convalescence ? would be good to read and get others perspective on it
Thank you @copperycat ! Appetite is slightly coming back. I can almost pinpoint when it came back, it’s like my brain and stomach finally connected w eachother. My taste buds are still meh . My hair stopped falling finally so hoping it will regrow.
What job do you do if you don’t mind me asking?
Really do take your time. I think am the first one questioning what I want for the future. Work actually got back in touch wanting me to work part time and am not sure if I am ready yet , even at one day a week, not sure this is yet for me as I have RT coming up, and for all the reasons that @naughty_boob gave (plus a million others like they want me back but on a lower salary, am disgusted and feel insulted actually).
Enjoy the simple things of life as much as you can and take your time
Seeing the breast consultant Friday. Hoping she’ll allow me to ride next week. I am 4 weeks post op this Saturday
The work question is tough isn’t it? How did you find returning @copperycat - were you knackered? Glad you’ve come to a solution @naughty_boob
I’m still off currently (6 weeks post aux lymph node op) and am starting 19 days of radiotherapy in April. I’d planned to go back at the start of May on a phased return, but am now thinking of delaying til a week or two after I’ve finished my rads. While chemo/treatment etc has been totally shit I’ve actually felt much calmer overall not doing my stressful job, which says something! My kids have noticed I seem more present and less stressed.
I think I may delay til mid May then go back on a very phased return, before seeing if they’ll let me go down to 4 days a week. I need a better work life balance, and time to concentrate on staying healthy and happy xxx
and congratulations on being a new auntie! Hopefully you have a visit and some cuddles to look forward to!
I don’t know what is it I can and can’t do and am known to have overdone it in the past so am being careful and bitting my time watching trash TV! The apprentice celebrity Australia is definitely right up there atm 
series 2 is violent drama wise, all on BBC iPlayer!!!
