Evening Molliana
Do not worry that you've not had staging scans. Some hospitals do them others don't. In reality every Consultant has slightly different ways of working and actually you can only be given an indicator from any scan / biopsy. Once any tumour is removed it is subject to Pathology testing for confirmation of grade which usually matches the prediction / indicator but can be different. Same with staging which can only be confirmed once they know how many nodes (if any) are involved the actual size of the tumour etc.
I was diagnosed with what appeared to be 6.5cm grade 3 tumour, highly likely to be in nodes..... from Ultrasound / biopsy x 3. Had Chemo first to shrink tumour before surgery so had heart scan (which is just to get a baseline) prior to Chemo and and Chest Xray prior to surgery. No other scans and i still haven' t had any other scans. I am 2.1/2 years on from my diagnosis, had reconstruction last year and this just needs some further tweaking..
Had Fec T(Chemo) x 6 then surgery. Tumour turned out to 4.2cm Grade 2 not 3 and in only 1/23 nodes.
You ladies are right the waiting is the worst thing and i felt that i was drip fed the infomation which was quite irritating but with hindsight i guess we can only process so much information at once.
Please just focus on keeping some normality in your lives, keep to your routine and trust the experts to do their job. Keep posting and ask anything that concerns you 'cos you will get replies and support on this forum.
Take Care Gilly x
