Hi,
I am 62 years old, live on my own, in theory I still have a full time job and I am an amputee.
in 2012 I was diagnosed with invasive hormone receptive breast cancer stage 3 and had 6 months of chemo followed by surgery (mammoplasty and node clearance) and radiotherapy. I was prescribed tamoxifen and took it for maybe a year but then stopped, I honestly can’t remember why!
Last July I found a lump in the same breast and this was diagnosed as another stage 3 cancer. My surgeon said I needed a mastectomy and that should be enough. For various reasons I needed to delay the surgery so he prescribed letrozole. Within a couple of days I was like a zombie and by September I was on reduced hours at work as the brain fog was so bad.
I had my surgery in November and then it was suggested I see an oncologist. I ended up with the same one as the first time, I am SO angry with myself for not saying that I really didn’t like this oncologist!
I also had the test to check risk of reoccurrence and that came out as high medium. I saw the oncologist who basically said all I needed was tamoxifen and to try it for 6 weeks to see how the side effects were. A couple of weeks later I mentioned to my surgeon that I felt uncomfortable with this oncologist and he sent me to see another one.
The new oncologist was completely different and absolutely clear that in his view I was high risk and that chemo was needed followed by hormone blockers and zoledronic acid.
So here I am chemo all done. Chemo was horrendous - apparently it’s worse second time around but luckily it was only 4 rounds.
So now he wants me to start tamoxifen. I have also had a dexa scan which showed very bad osteoporosis in my lower spine. The thing is I just don’t want to take the tamoxifen, the side effects of letrozole and anastrozole have terrified me. I felt so ill and the effects took months to wear off.
It just seems to me that my body needs the estrogen and blocking it just makes me feel ill. I have given almost 2 years to this illness over the last 10 years and I just want my life back.
but then I think why go through the chemo etc and just stop at this last hurdle, only one pill a day.
So confused but also so sure I am not brave enough to risk feeling so bad again.