Telephone Results

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Telephone Results

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Telephone Results My Mum has just been diagnosed and had her op for breast cancer.

They had to remove all her lymph glands as did sentinel test and it was infected.

She has waited two weeks for results of type of cancer, but they have called today and said they wont give results over the phone.

Is this bad news? I would have thought that they could have told her over the phone if only some of glands were infected?

Anyone else been refused results over the phone or received results over the phone?

Thanks

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answers… I didn’t have sentinel node biopsy 4 yrs ago, not available then at my hospital.

I had a WLE , with some 8 sample node lymph glands removed -although I live some one and a half hour’s journey to the hospital including a ferry, I was told I had to go to the hospital to get the results.
It was Jan, blisteringly cold on the ferry and thern a 30 min taxi ride to the hospital.

Can look back on that horrendous journey now -with some insouciance - and found solace in a little pub on the water in Plymouth where we waited for the ferry back to Cornwall. Ugh, they told me the cancer had spread. My, It just got worse every time we went to the hospital - lymph nodes involved, and then after total axillary resection more nodes… and then chemo, when it had never been mentioned before. We just dreaded to go to the hospital. - but somehow, you cope

So pleased to say that after 4 years. | am still here. loving my life in this crazy Fort in the middle of nowhere, except on the sea.

I don’t think the surgeons and bc nurses want to give you bad news over the phone - at least that has been my experience.

Hope all goes well for you.
Liz.

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strange policy You can’t really conclude anything from not being told over the phone as it seems to be a policy of the NHS not to disclose things in this way whether it is good news or bad. In my opinion this adds to anxiety but it may not be everyone’s view

In New Zealand my lodger got told she had breast cancer at work on the phone. She didn’t find this particularly helpful.

I wanted to be told by phone and they wouldn’t. It would be nice if the medics found out from patients what they want. I think they are worried that if we don’t hear from someone in person we may be more distressed.

Personally I found waiting around in a hospital for hours then finding out a lot worse. I was cold (left in an unheated room in a gown for about an hour) bored (no-one explained why the delay) and hungry (by the time I left it was after one pm)

Mind you it is bad news whether you hear it over the phone or in person. And at some point you have to know one way or the other. In some ways knowing even if it is bad news is better than uncertainty.

Good luck

Mole