How did we get here

 It’s taken me a few weeks to start this blog....

I’ve tousled with what’s the point, who will read it questions and then realised I needed to do it for me anyway.

So here goes...... 

To bring you up to speed, I’ve been diagnosed with an invasive ductile carcinoma grade 3 breast cancer.

How did I find it people ask? You can hear the dread in their voice at the end of the phone and know they will be straight off to check their Breast’s post phone call. The truth is I have large Breast’s and my Tumor was deep in my left one. No amount of prodding by myself or the doctor was going to feel a lump. I count myself lucky that I had pain from it. Not an ache because that comes with the territory with big boobs, but a real soreness, like you get with a bruise.

The doctor said it was probably an infection and put me on antibiotics. It wasn’t, so after a couple of weeks I was having a mammogram. Boy did they move fast then, I was impressed. No sign of covid holding us up I was glad to see! Biopsied same date and a lumpectomy 27 days after biopsy was taken.

The good news is is that a lumpectomy is surprisingly not that painful, I was more worried about my first general anaesethic and cried like a baby on the operating table. I think they wanted to shut me up so before I knew it i was waking up.

Another week on and the results came back NOT IN LYMPH NODES. Relief indeed. But news is never quite as cut and dry as that. The margins weren’t big enough so once I have had chemo it’s back to the operating theatre. Having wrestled with my boob once I think they were pleased to hear I would opt for a full mastectomy and they could just lop it off.

Plus as my son had cancer when he was younger (he’s fine now) and my sister died of Non Hodgkins B lymphoma last year, I’m now in the genealogy pool for testing with further implications so we’ve got another journey there which of course I will share.

So here I am 9 days away from starting chemo with so much more I want to tell you but very aware I should keep these posts short to avoid you nodding off! 

But as I have been a mum and a sister of someone with cancer and now experiencing it myself I feel I do have a wealth of knowledge and emotions from all angles that I hope will help someone. So I will be back!