I have yet to met a medical oncologist but I assumed due to age chemo is most likely - wondering if chemo is somewhat standard for people under 40?
I (34F) am shattered. Three weeks ago, after discovering a lump, I learned I have breastcancer. After many tests, I now know it is triple-positive: one 3.5 cm tumor, a smaller 8 mm one, and involvement of one lymph node. A treatment plan had been drawn up, and the only thing left was a PET scan.
Today, I heard that spots (three or four) have been found on my liver. I have an MRI tomorrow (i dont even know why) A biopsy is still to come, but they’ve already said these are metastases. I just want to go to sleep and never wake up. I am at the end of my rope. Please... are there any positive stories? I’m trying not to Google it, but I’m going out of my mind.
"Everything is fucked, everybody sucks
You don't really know why, but you want to justify, Rippin' someone's head off"
I'm about 4 years post treatment. I had an oophorectomy and am currently on exemestane. Sometimes I get so freaking irritated it's an awful simmering rage, if I'm alone I just let myself have a tantrum. Throw a hot flash in the mix and it's game over. I don't know if it's the meno, the drugs, or I'm just an unreasonable bitch now. I don't really like me anymore. I try to hide it from others but my poor partner has to hear about it and I know it is wearing him out. I guess I'm not looking for advice but maybe the comfort of knowing other people have the same experience.
I need to post because this group will understand. I was on a work call today and my 87 year old mom called me. She never calls at work unless it’s an emergency. I told my manager I needed to step away for a family emergency and answered her call.
I ask if everything’s OK and she says, and I quote, “ I’m at the funeral home and it made me think of you. How are you doing?”
She knew I was working but it was the “only chance she had to call me all week. “ 87 years old. Retired. Lives alone. I was gobsmacked.
By the time I called my manager back I was laughing so hard I couldn’t speak. Her response was “Holy Sh*t” . If I don’t laugh, I’ll be pissed at her but I have to think she doesn’t mean to be an idiot.
Hi all! My first post here since my diagnosis this past Thursday.
For context: 34yo Stage 3c Invasive Ductal Carcinoma with likely lymph node involvement and inflammatory properties. Brain and organ involvement has been ruled out just waiting on results for bone. Either way I start 6mo of chemo on 8/28 (Keynote 522)
I have been trying to take everything in stride and minus this I have felt (mentally, emotionally and physically) more like myself than I have in years.
I have been easily able to wrap my mind around and accept that I will at least be losing 1 breast to surgery if not both (decision to be made later also waiting on genetic testing results) and my hair. These were truly easy for me to come to terms with for some reason.
What I’m really grappling with is the possible weight gain through chemo. I have spent the last year and a half working on getting my weight down and my eating habits to a much healthier level. I have lost 30lbs during my weight loss journey and am really struggling with the idea of losing all the progress I’ve made. I know mindful eating and staying active will be helpful through treatment but I still fear the gain.
It seems like such a superficial thing for me to worry about when my health comes first and right now cancer is at the forefront. I have read a lot of anecdotes on this thread about weight gain but I would love to hear more of both sides (if they exist). Please be gentle in your sharing as I WANT to hear both but am really struggling with this.
Been lurking here since i got my diagnosis. You guys aee amazing. I don't know what i would have done without the vast experiential information and love you all have providdd to so many. Thank you. All of you.
Now I have a question.
I got the pathology report this afternoon, all margins clear! Yay! Thought i was done with this blip in my life.
Then I talked to the surgeon. She confirmed we were done with any surgical procedures, but said I would still need to consult with the radiological oncologist, and she said she the notmal next course of treatment is radiation. I'm devastated.
Has anyone with DCIS avoided radiation after successful lumpectomies? I'm just trying to adjust my expectations.
Thanks for any insight you can provide.
Hi girls. So I had my lumpectomy/sentinel node biopsy this morning and it went well. I’m in pain, but it’s not unbearable and I just took an Oxycodone pill. My question is about my drain. I’m about to empty it and it looks like the drain is already clogged from this morning so I need to strip it. My question is do I strip it now before I empty it, or afterwards. I’m looking at the instructions and the way they’re written, it doesn’t indicate that. I don’t want to screw this up on day one and my doctors office is closed for the evening:
Has anyone ever filed a patient grievance that resulted in another patient favorable outcome?
Story:
6/2 diagnostic mammograms with BI-RADS 3. In the interpretation the radiologist noted the national stereotactic needle shortage and long wait lists.
I requested a second read that upgraded it to Bi-rads 4 and recommended biopsy.
Biopsy was scheduled for 7/1
7/6 pathology indicated high grade DCIS.
8/13 had lumpectomy and meeting w med oncology on 9/9 for radiation plan.
I filed an 8 page evidence based patient grievance against the first hospital.
They responded today saying - in a nutshell - they did nothing wrong and stand by the radiologist’s interpretation.
All of this was done internally.
Had anyone had a similar experience and do you have any recommendations for pursuing?
The medical facility in question is Cheshire medical center in Keene NH.
Thanks for any insight/thoughts.
If you did the red devil drugs for triple negative breast cancer, what were your side effects? When did they start? How long did that last? Did they get worse are the treatments went on?
Anyone else here with a 35 cm scar (reversed L from nipple upwards turning left until the armpit) after an onkoplastic breast surgery ?
If so, how are you dealing with it physically and mentally ?
Hello breasties …Tell me your ways and methods on how you keep your mind from not unravelling. I can usually sense , my mind going down the terrible pit of doom where I self wallow or feel utter despair and have to actively do something else to not let my mind go there
My current method is to get up from wherever am sitting and dance to music (has to be peppy) immediately otherwise its self wallow and crying and sadness for me and there is only so much crying one can do . But I think my mind is catching up and I need different methods or tricks up my sleeves
what is normal chest pain after radiation? i just finished 20 rounds on my left side. for about 3 days im getting a deep pulsing pain. exasperated by a deep breath, folding forward. some level of this im guessing is normal? sitting at emerg but i just want to go home 🫠
I'm newly diagnosed (by accident, the dog pounced on me and popped a cyst, which led to a diagnostic mammogram before my routine would have been scheduled, which found DCIS, DC (++-)). Biopsy done. MRI completed, but now they want a MRI guided Biopsy and another mammogram next week, to determine margins.
I meet with surgical oncologist Monday. Tapering HRT now. NOT how I wanted spend my first months of retirement, but thankful that it gives me more time for all of the appointments.
61F. Not a lot of family history. But I have several good friends I can talk to.
Thanks for having this group, and for reading this. 🙏🏻
Hi guys, I’ve just got diagnosed, the diagnosis is…something. I’m the youngest person in the quemoterapy room, I was really scared of everything because as far as I know my medication it’s heavy, even though I don’t feel anything bad…I feel that I should feel sad and angry like before but starting treatment no matter how bad things are it’s giving me hope…sometimes I choose to be sad so it gives me the illusion that if the bad moment comes I’ll be prepared but it’s not like that. Should I let me feel happy even knowing my diagnosis is cancer?, sometimes I think that if I feel happy and I’m not in the “survival mode” I’ll be letting my body get sick, but I don’t want to feel bad, I don’t understand it’s really weird. Sorry English is not my first language
I just found out today that I have breast cancer. It was the initial biopsy report that simply stated Invasive Ductal Carcinoma.
I am 56 and have depression. I am less scared of dying than of all the unknown ahead with this diagnosis.
I have an appointment with a breast oncologist next week, and I suppose with that appointment and the rest of the pathology results I will learn a little more.
I'm scared it will all hurt. and I'm scared that I am not strong enough.
Thank you for listening to me 🫶
So long story short, I (44 f) am an experienced inpatient and outpatient oncology nurse who has seen too much and knows too much.
In May, my annual Mammo showed some distortion. I went. In for the diagnostic imaging. The radiologist saw some “nonspecific nodular tissue” on my u/s. Turns out to be DCIS.
An MRI later, the DCIS turns out to be much larger than thought; 11 cm. I have a mass on the right as well (benign per MRI guided biopsy).
My mom went through this 12 years ago so I’ve basically been preparing myself for this. Since I got the diagnosis I’ve been coping with humor, as I do.
Anyway, tomorrow is my injection for the sentinel node biopsy and my DMX with expander placement is on Thursday. I’m finally really starting to feel anxious.
How did you cope? What did you find that you absolutely needed to get through?
My third round of chemo is Friday. All things considered I'm doing pretty well physically, working most days, calling in minimally when the neuropathy or bone pain from the blood cell booster becomes a little too much. I have been very cranky lately, and easily angered.
Today my SO and I were discussing radiation, and how it also changes the breast shape and appearance. We deal with our discomfort through humor together a lot, and while nothing he said was hurtful or aimed at me specifically, because I am already feeling vulnerable it hit me hard, and hurt my feelings.
I cooked dinner and did the dishes, and then got irritated because he didn't help me clean up. He was doing other house stuff. Normally I would not respond this way. I didn't sleep at all, because I was such an emotional mess. IDK if its the chemo drop, my hormones fluctuating, being tired, having my feelings hurt, or a combination of all of it together, but I am angry, and hurt, and I feel so small and unimportant. He and I talked about it all already, he has apologized profusely, he keeps encouraging me to talk to him about how I'm feeling and just trying to support me while I feel so down and discouraged.
Now I'm at work, they left me with the one person on my crew I just do not like, and even though we have not said a word to each other outside of procedural talk, everything she is doing is absolutely infuriating me. Plus, she's behind the desk using a dental pick loudly, and the popping is enough to make my skin crawl.
I keep tearing up. I keep wanting to lash out. I know dealing with treatment and the changes cancer brings to life is a lot, so its not that I don't understand why I would be emotional. I am a pretty stoic person. I don't share my inner turmoil with the people around me. This is outside of my wheelhouse and I feel like I am losing my mind, and losing the stability that is me.
I'm just venting, but wouldn't mind hearing from anyone that felt similar. Your experiences, or your coping mechanisms, or your worst behaviors and their consequences because of it. I am biting my tongue because I just don't want to say something in my irritation that would hurt someone because I just can't control my emotions today.
Hey ladies (and fucking unlucky blokes)
So just thought I should share I thought orgasms were a thing of the past for me. Tamoxifen has been a wild fucking ride. I read all about the oestrogen arousal pathway and thought it was just over for me.
Like 3 weeks in.... they've came back. Bit of effort required, but I have hope I'm not doomed to be a sexless nun! Fucking yee fucking haha! Xxx
Last week was my last TCx4. The nurse asked if I wanted to ring the bell and I told her no. I told her I still have radiation to do plus it didn’t feel right if there was somebody in the infusion room within hearing that would never be able to ring it. She said there was a bell in radiation if I felt like ringing that one when I was done with that.
After infusion, I went to my happy place…Trader Joe’s. I’ve never done this, but in chatting with the cashier, I mentioned that I just had my last chemo and was pretty happy about that. And I got the flowers :-)
He asked if I rang the bell, and I said no and I told him why. He said, you can ring ours if you want to. If you know Trader Joe’s, you know what I’m talking about.
So I rang it. He and the bagger cheered, and I teared up unexpectedly. It was so me and so wonderful!
Ich hatte am Donnerstag meine letzte Strahlentherapie-Sitzung und heute eine Kontrolluntersuchung. Ich bin somit mit der aktiven Behandlung durch!!
Weiter geht's jetzt mit 5 Jahren Antihormon-Medikamenten.
Seit der Diagnose am 5.5. (Kontrollmammographie) kommt es mir wie eine Ewigkeit vor ...
Wir haben hier nicht wirklich das Ritual der "Glocke läuten", aber ich bin auch so froh und glücklich 😃
In diesem Sinne gehe ich jetzt mit meinem Mann feiern und der Prosecco wird fließen!!