So I was just diagnosed with breast cancer, small tumor doctor think it was caught in time, but still worrisome. Lumpectomy scheduled next week. Sigh, never thought it would happen to me.
Be strong - the weeks ahead will be trying, but it sounds like you have an excellent prognosis.
StG
Best wishes!
I’m very sorry. You’ll have more information soon and if you like, bring it back here and we’ll help you figure out anything confusing. Or just vent.
I hope they caught it early. Yes, best wishes! I’m sending healing energy your way.
Good luck to you!
Good luck to you. Almost exactly a year ago my wife was diagnosed. I even posted about it here. She had a lumpectomy followed by radiation, and she is ok now.
It’s a shock. Most of us have this magical-thinking concept that cancer only happens to other people. I had to tell myself over and over “I have cancer” because my brain couldn’t quite grasp the concept. Lots of crying.
It’s great that yours was caught early. We’re all pulling for you.
Two years ago my wife was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer. She went through chemo, a lumpectomy, another lumpectomy after the first one was inconclusive, radiation, and biological treatments. He last treatment was almost a year ago, and since then, other than recurring pain due to the operation, she’s been fine - completely cancer free (touch wood).
It was very much the Year in Hell (compounded, in our case, by Covid and by my mother’s death from pancreatic cancer), but it ended, and things are pretty much back to normal. You can get through this.
That’s scary. Fingers crossed for good news, easy treatment, and a full recovery.
Your OP sounds slightly apologetic for posting about this. Don’t apologize! If and when I ever have news like yours, I’ll be posting it here for sure, because I know I’ll get support and valuable info. The Dope is great for that. Please let us know when you have news.
I am wishing you strength and calm.
A few other things, OP. First, no two cancers are alike, so please don’t don’t try to predict your own future by anybody else’s experience. It’s like when my mom was suffering from shingles and well-intended people kept telling her horrific stories about other shingles cases. All that did was upset her, and for no good reason.
However, I did find it helpful to ask questions of women who were in the same boat: What kind of bra did you wear after surgery? How do you break the news to family members? How the heck do you sleep propped up post-op? That’s where I found message boards for breast cancer patients invaluable.
Also, information is your friend. Keep a running list of questions as you think of them, and bring that list with you to appointments. If you can, take someone you trust with you to appointments to take notes and help you remember what was said.
Finally, something to keep in mind if you start googling stats and studies: my surgeon said survival rates, etc., are ALWAYS better than what you read online. That’s because the data is taken from studies that began 5+ years before the study was published, and treatments are improving much faster than that.
Hope all this helps.
I had an abnormal mammogram, and got the news myself on October 3, 2017. After two excisions and 20 radiation treatments, and a year and a half of chemical castration, I am cancer-free and my life expectancy is the same as if this had never happened.
Hugs to you, eenerms.
I had that experience in Feb 2015. I remember when I went back for the biopsy results and the radiologist came into the room and said gloomily, “I’m gonna give you the news you don’t want to hear.”
In my case, it turned out to be kind of a nothingberder. I had a lumpectomy, three weeks of radiation, no chemo, five years of the estrogen-blocker Arimidex. Since then I’ve had two other biopsies (I really hate those) with no other bad news. I was fortunate, but my walk in the park isn’t all that rare.
When I was diagnosed, my mother said, “Weren’t you shocked to get that diagnosis?” And I said, “No, for a woman my age to be diagnosed with breast cancer isn’t the least bit surprising.” I have at least seven girlfriends (ages 50-70-ish) who have also had various breast cancer diagnoses and have gone through various treatments from lumpectomy to double mastectomy. All still alive and kicking.
I’d like to refer you to the website Breastcancer.org. It is a VAST repository of information-- a dizzying amount. There’s an informational section where you can search for articles. And a community forum-- the message boards are hard to navigate because the threads are permitted to go on for thousands of posts. But you can search, mark certain threads as favorites and get emails when there are replies, and easily start a new thread. [That board isn’t anywhere near as easy to get around as the SDMB.]
Get yourself familiar with the different types of breast cancer, the treatments (surgical and pharmaceutical), the many nuances-- and there are LOTS of nuances. Be as informed as you can be when you talk to your surgeon, oncologist, radiation oncologist, etc. At first you won’t even know what questions to ask, but after you read enough, you will start to absorb information. And you will have options to choose from. This is one of those instances where the cliche is literally true: everyone really IS just a little bit different.
Good luck. Keep us informed, if you’re inclined to.