Hi doodles.
Sometimes this thread is really busy, sometimes it's a bit quieter - it just depends if some newly diagnosed ladies come on and share their fears - which we try to help with - or sometimes it's just because we're having a natter! Either way, just join in as much or as little as you want, it really doesn't matter if you just find reading the forum is helpful and you don't want or need to post. I think a lot of us read every day but quite a few, including me at times, don't add anything as they feel they can't add to what has already been said.
Anyway onto your questions. You can ask as little or as much from your oncologist as you want, you are entitled to see, and get copies, of all scans and reports. It took me a while to eventually ask some probing questions and now there's no stopping me!
What you will want to know is what type of SBC you have. Is it hormone positive (or negative) and is it HER2 positive (or negative). This will determine your treatment. You might be put on a course of chemo, which is likely to push you into the menopause, or hormone treatment which will also affect your menopausal state, including the possibility of zoladex which puts you into an induced menopausal state, which can be reversed once zoladex is stopped. You are most likely to be on a bone strengthening treatment as well, I think all of us are and it would be unusual if you weren't. This is now tends to be a 4 weekly injection called Denosumab, which sometimes gets changed to 6 weekly after a time. You are normally scanned after 3-4 months after starting a new treatment to see how it's working. This often isn't a bone scan as nuclear medicine isn't given that often but CT scans or MRI scans also pick up changes to bones and will indicate if they are healing.
Hope that helps and I'm sure some other ladies will add their views as well if there's other questions they have asked.
Good luck with your appointment and either take someone with you to take notes, or take them yourself, there will be a lot of info to take in which, in my case, always produces more questions, usually once I'm out of the room!
Nicky x
