Hello Lovely Ladies
I will be honest and admit I have um’d and arr’d about sending this update but decided that hopefully new and anxious people joining this site will see this post as a glimmer of hope.
I had my routine mammogram in July this year. Got called back for a 2nd screening which took place the 3rd week in August and was told I had DCIS of the left breast the following week - treatment required a mastectomy!
I had surgery, a simple mastectomy without an implant and sentinel node biopsy at the beginning of October.
I left hospital the same day without any drains and didn’t feel at all like I had just had surgery.
I did my exercises religiously every day but succumbed to some cording and a little bit of seroma. The seroma corrected itself but I have been having weekly physio sessions with the most wonderful physiotherapist which has got rid of the cording and now 6 weeks after the surgery the range of movement in my left arm is almost back to normal. I have some stiffness in the removed breast area but my physio is still working with me to improve this.
4 weeks after the surgery I received the brilliant news that the 3 lymph nodes removed showed no sign of invasion and the extensive area of DCIS showed a minuscule amount of microinvasion. All of which means I need no further treatment- no tablets, no radiotherapy and no chemotherapy.
I can’t quite believe that my journey has been so quick and has ended (for now at least) so positively. I have gone from carefree, to concerned about the future, back to, well not carefree but extremely relieved and if I’m honest in a state of disbelief.
All in all the past few months have been surreal and continue to be so, but for now I am going to try and live my best life and hopefully many if not all of you reading this post can take some hope from this post and get back to living your best life very soon too.
I don’t know what’s round the corner, this disease reminds us all of that, but until someone tells me otherwise I’m going to stay positive. I hope lots of you do too.
Love and hugs
Diane 