Just that really- I have my one-stop clinic referral (under normal 2-week referral) on Wednesday.
I’m 30 and have symptoms that may indicate ‘Inflammatory breast cancer’ and I have scared myself silly by googling my symptoms and finding out facts I didn’t want to know (e.g. that IBC is only ever diagnosed once it’s spread to either lymph nodes or more distally).
I really wanted to start my own family and that seems uncertain at the moment, as does the future more generally.
Rosethistle,
What a horrible time you are having, to say the least, feeling so uncertain about things and rocked to the core.
Please don’t google things anymore, it really won’t help (you can see you’ve scare yourself silly!) and it certainly won’t give any answers. Its not long to wait now, and even IF (and lets not jump the gun on it) you have a diagnosis of IBC made you really need to take your cues from the medical professionals around you. They will have much more up-to-date information, and give better guidance on the situation than all these (generally) out of date reports and things on the www. I did some reading on IBC the other day, and apparently there have been some very recent major treatment changes which have drastically pushed up the effectiveness of treatment in leaps and bounds. Things really may not be, and I don’t believe they would be, as awful as you are imagining right now.
Everybody’s situation is different, even if they do get a diagnosis, and hearing the horror stories on the internet will be really unhelpful for you right now.
I have my fingers really firmly crossed for you for Wednesday, and do keep posting here over the net few days, or ring the helpling number if you feel you just have to get some of the worry out of your system,
x
Thank you Charys for empathising - it does completely feel like I’ve been rocked to the core!
Thanks for letting me know that treatments are more effective and that if there is anything wrong I just have to listen to my consultant and not google!
I’m so glad the NHS has a two-week wait policy but it still feels like such a long time!
xx
Thank you Jobey68 :)
I have stopped googling now so that’s helping. I couldn’t find another explanation for peau d’orange, insect-bite like marks and redness online and that wasn’t helping but I’m not a medical professional so there might be a really obvious explanation!
I have a problem with uncertainty anyway but then I guess most people do!