May I offer you and your mom a web sight started by a girl my husband went to high school with who when she was a brand new mama found out she had a very rare form of cancer.
She went through hell and back and decided to give back somehow and came up with a website for people who have cancer to look for info, chat and commiserate.
That way, if the person is too sick from chemo, too much in denial, too shy…too whatever to attend support groups, they don’t feel so isolated. It is any cancer, not just breast cancer. A place to share stories of what they encountered and how to survive.
Also, the woman pictured on the main page is the woman who came up with this idea. I beleive the site is about a year old and growing. (We did a golf outting to fund raise for this.)
1010011010, I’ve never said this before, but you’re so full of shit that your scleras (sclerae?) are brown!
I had a lump in my breast like an egg in 1994. It was excised, and found (to everyone’s surprise - I was only 39, childless, and had no family history of breast cancer) to be malignant. It was a good sized tumor, 4 centimeters, yet you have to know there’s a scar and look for it to see it. I had 31 lymph nodes removed and tested; all were negative for spread. But because it had been a very fast grower for breast cancer (which is in general a very slow cancer), I had radiation and chemo. If I hadn’t known I was having chemo, I wouldn’t have known it, if you know what I mean. No side effects - I lost no hair, and had only the mildest of stomach upset. The radiation was five days a week for six weeks - inconvenient, but hardly dreadful.
I then took Tamoxifen for six years. Between the chemo and the tamoxifen, I went into menopause. I’m here to tell you that if I were offered the trade of having my breast cancer experience in exchange for not having to have periods any more, I’d take it in a heart beat!
Cancer doesn’t have to be a tragedy, although, of course, it often is. But sometimes, it’s just a nuisance. I knew another woman with a remarkably similar experience, and she felt the same way, so, while I was certainly lucky, I am hardly unique.
Priceguy, I understand that you’re scared. But the experiences relayed in this thread should tell you that this is by no means a death sentence, or even a cause for your mom’s life to be made miserable. These days, they treat as minimally as they think prudent, so the chances are good that if your mom has chemo, it will be as mild and non-traumatic as my own.
Best of luck to you and your family!
I hope your bitterness and cynicism is fueled by having lost someone close to you from cancer. There might be some rationale for your opinion. Otherwise, you’re simply mean-spirited and uninformed.
Priceguy
My family happens to have an execptionally high rate of cancer. My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at a young age and survived another 20 years – meaning she lived a full life.
Here’s what an early diagnosis REALLY means:
You’ll take better care of yourself
You’ll go to the doctor to have that suspicious whatever checked out, instead of hoping it just goes away by itself
You’ll have less invasive treatment with fewer side effects
You’ll probably live a longer, healthier life than if you had never had cancer
As for “living a more or less normal life for years until things go unspeakably wrong and dying with a few months” I’ve seen that, too. Here’s what really happens.
You’ll be in pain, lots of it
One by one vital organs will be affected, and you’ll start to lose those functions, as well
You and your family will go through emotional hell, and your survivors will never be able to answer the questions “Did we do everything we could? Would she have lived if she’d caught it earlier?”
Someone “dedicated to this brand of Awareness™” is either naive or cruel.
I know exactly how you’re feeling right now, as I went through this with my own mother. Hers was caught late, though (after having been initially mis-diagnosed!), so there wasn’t as good a chance for survival. She did manage to make the 5 year mark, but it did come back metastasized to her lungs and she died a year after that.
My Aunt, however, has been a survivor for over 10 years now!!
I can so relate to the fear you’re going through, though. Your head’s probably spinning and you kindof feel numb. The worst part is feeling so damn helpless! There’s probably nothing any of us can say right now that will actually make you feel better until your mom’s out of surgery and the test results come back negative for spreading. It will get better, though, I promise.
In the meantime, you can at least somewhat take out your frustration, anger and feeling of helplessness by visiting http://www.thebreastcancersite.com and clicking to donate free mammograms.
Best of luck to your mom (and all those other mothers mentioned here!).
Thanks for all the kind words, everybody. I’ve spoken to my mother again and she’s fine. She’s coping well and isn’t in any pain. The prognosis is good. Surgery set for September 24th, and after that we’ll know for sure. My father is worse off, though, he’s never been very good at coping.
It hits me every now and again - “My mother has cancer!” - but most of the time life goes on as it always has. I’m in high spirits and good hopes.
Thanks again, guys. You really helped. H82W8, good luck to you and your mother. Let me know how it turns out.
I knew another woman with a remarkably similar experience, and she felt the same way, so, while I was certainly lucky, I am hardly unique.