**Tamoxigang counting down to Easter eggs- thread 48**

[BetsyBoop]

throws some hot cross buns on the trolley

Zombie is home. Full update on her thread in chat. All is well. xxx

Just wanted to wish everyone

A VERY HAPPY EASTER.

Hope everyone has a lovely day! Xx

Welcome home Zombie.

Happy Easter everyone. DH is preparing Easter lunch today and has the lamb slow-cooking in the oven already!

difficult i hope you are feeling as strong as you sound. You do have such a tiresome treatment path, puts my 'superglued armpit/carrying a sharp brick' kind of discomfort into perspective.
bish your DH gets the Easter bunny award, my DH is asleep and probably will be until 10 minutes before our guests arrive at 11.
wren I made the decision to try and make sure I surrounded myself with only positive people at the moment. This is all well and good unless those close to you are not handling things very well. Unfortunately my DM, usually my rock, has her own health issues at the moment, I also think (although she would never admit it) that my diagnosis has distracted the attention away from her, and she is quite stressful to be around. We were meant to gave a lovely trip out, just the two of us, to a local market yesterday, when we got there she decided she wasn't in the mood, and sat on a bench while I rushed around not wanting to take too long. Because I love her, I will embrace her negativity but I wouldn't for anyone I cared for less.
Wishing everyone else a happy Easter. Weather due to break today in Cornwall - hope we manage to egg the Easter egg hunt done first.

Happy Easter everybody. Hope you all had as much chocolate as you could stand.

Difficult - hope your new line goes in without a hitch.
Malt - carry on having a fab holiday.

Hi all, advice please. Following my node clearance on the 8th I have been left with a solid ridge of flesh, from my armpit across the top of where my breast was. This ridge is totally numb. Is this usual? Will it ever change shape or regain feeling? I can ask my consultant when I get my results on Wednesday but was keen to know if any of you have experienced similar. Hope you all enjoyed Easter, I'm hoping the lack of posts was due to hands being otherwise engaged with eating chocolate.

Hi Biggerbuns, I've been reading this thread for a few weeks now. I had a mx and reconstruction at the end of Feb and I would say my whole breast area is still pretty numb. I can feel pressure, but not a light touch. Hopefully, it will come back slowly, but nothing to be alarmed about hopefully.
I am having FEC-T, on day 18 of first cycle. The first few days were pretty grim. I really suffered with nausea and vomiting, but hopefully they will be sorting out my anti emetics for Friday which is my next cycle. Fortunately, after the nausea/vomiting subsided I felt fine. Had really bad indigestion I think from the antibiotics and a horrible claggy mouth for about a week, but after that 'touch wood' I have felt fine.
Hope you continue to recover from your surgery well. I felt quite apprehensive about starting my chemo (fear of the unknown) but now I know what to expect I am feeling pretty ok about it.

BiggerBuns I can't speak for the breast scar but when I had node clearance across my neck when I had thyroid cancer I was left with a solid ridge which took around a year to reduce in size. My numbness subsided over time too but took a year... I continued to feel a bit of numbness - very subtle - for another year.

Right, I have dates in diary now and it's all kicking off this week: portacath implant tomorrow the chemo (1st ever cycle) on Wednesday; then home same day with chemo in a can; return to hospital on Friday for chemo can removal. Cycle 2 in a fortnight.

I am quite scared now re. side effects. Luckily my DH (who usually works long hours in the City) has been able to take more time off (as compassionate leave) to be with me for the first cycle and help me through any side effects.

Can I join?

I had a lump in my right breast biopsied last Tuesday and get the results next Friday.

The oncologist said it looked like (multiple) papillomas but they need the biopsy results to be sure.

If it is straightforward multiple papillomas that gives me a 5-7 times relative lifetime risk of developing breast cancer (i.e. 62.5%-87.5% lifetime risk, if I understand correctly). The doctor was talking in terms of a lumpectomy to remove the papillomas but I am keen to have a bilateral prophylactic mastectomy if the risk is that high.

I am going to ask for a second opinion from the Royal Marsden (apparently you can do this now using choose and book).

Does anyone have any experience of any of this?

Hello yotty and egghead
I also have second FEC-T on friday and only had two bad days.My hair has been falling out since wednesday and getting hair cut and wig tomorrow.Feeling a bit sad but sure i will be fine once it gone.
Hope everybody has had some times over Easter .

Hi yotty and bish thanks for the replies. bish sounds similar to you. good to know it is likely to eventually subside - I'm all about the end game.
Good luck all of you in the midst of chemo cycles. I am dreading the hair loss bit, almost want it over and done so I can get past it. Expecting my chemo to start in June sometime. I have quite long hair, having difficulty styling it at the moment due to op, weighing up between going shorter (not short) now or waiting until the very first sign if hair loss and cutting the lot off at that point.
Hi egghead I'm afraid I can't offer any words of wisdom but welcome and I expect someone better informed will be along shortly. I have have just had BMX (one side was elective) and have absolutely no regrets.

Hope you feel less sad soon Mildmay. Good to know you don't regret BMX, CBB. I am hoping there won't be difficulties getting one on the NHS for my condition.

On hair loss: I was on Tax from the start and the hair fell out soon after the 2nd round started. I think it is up to you and your feelings whether you go short earlier rather than later, but I found that having it shaved off as soon as it fell out in large amounts was helpful to me as I would have found it difficult to deal with it coming out at home over several days.
I have to admit that once shaved I avoided looking at my bare head until regrowth started and hair covered the head again (and it does regrow straight after treatment ends though far more slowly than you want!). Others are probably braver than me, but I dealt with it well that way.

Zombie is strange. She knows you all realise that anyway. She got 2 wigs when she had chemo in 2012. She never wore either of them. Other than a warm hat when she was outside (chemo was between January and May) she went bareheaded. She plans to do the same this time. Chemo probably won't start until end of May / early June so this time it will just be a sun hat when she's out and about.

Hi all.
Have hidden away the last few days feeling a bit lost with it all but being able to drive again today and take my boys out really helped improve the mood. My hair started falling out yesterday and my scalp feels weird and a bit sore. Think I may have to get it cut soon, had to hoover my bed! Picking my wig up on wed but not sure how much I will wear it.

Mildmay- I know how you feel. Hope hair cut and wig collecting goes well.

Yotty- your experience sounds exactly the same as mine. I am day 14 on first fec-t but don't have next one until a week on thurs. I get my surgery after the chemo and will probably opt for a BMX.

Biggerbuns- hope you get some feeling soon or at least get reassured by your consultant.

Zombie- glad you are home.

I wore a hairnet in bed for the last two weeks before my head was shaved. I must have looked like Ena Sharples but it meant I didn't have to vacuum the bed!
The hairdresser who dealt with my wig said as I was shaved "your hair 's going on holiday". Sounds silly, but I kept it in mind all through chemo ... it would come back again after a short time!

Biggerbuns, it's still pretty soon after your op; there's a lot of healing and settling down still to go. I was also advised to massage my scars to help break down scar tissue and keep tissue mobile.

Egghead, it sounds like a big decision and I'm not surprised you want to think about all aspects. I'm sorry not to have helpful experience. You certainly can get a second opinion, but if the information is clear cut and the advice is standard, you may not feel it's worth your while - ask how standardised the treatment pathway is. That's different from saying that you have to take the advice. I would be surprised if an elective bmx wasn't available to you.

Thanks very much Wren. I will look into care pathways. I'd rather be seen at the Royal Marsden than my local hospital as it is a centre of excellence and closer to my work so I think I'll just ask to be transferred rather than for a second opinion.

I hope everyone is doing OK.

Oh well back to Rads for me today I was really enjoying not having to go, for the last 4 days! This part of the treatment just seems never-ending!

Hi to egghead good luck with the results. Xx

mildmay I just wanted to send you a ((((((hug))))))) xx

Hope everyone has a good day. Good luck to those of you who are off for Chemo this week! Xx

Really thanks so for the hug and sorry you are back to rads tosday.DH looked sad when going to work but has promised not to call me Mrs Potato Head.I found assesorize has some nice scarves and caps for summer.

Back to Rads for me too. It was a nice little break to have none yesterday. Getting port flushed today too, hopefully I'll get it removed soon.
Meanwhile, I'm lazing in bed. I love school holidays! Poor DH was up at 7 for work, it was nice to just turn over and fall back to sleep.

Waving too all, sorry brain mushy today and can't follow everyone, but welcome to egghead

Waiting for a all back from my bcn as I missed her call today. Got onc appt tomorrow, surgeon says to call her into meeting as well - blimey 2 doctors for the price of one.

Then bone scan on Thursday, hospital about 1/2 an hour away, but have 3 hour wait between injection and scan .... So either come home for a couple of hours or hang about for At the hospital for 3 hours.
Could wander into town but its too close to the end of the month and I have very little money left for shopping.

GREAT START

Sitting in radiotherapy department machine currently running 1hr and 45mins late! I hate RADS!!

mom I hope u had more luck! Xx

Hug to all sitting in rads.!!!! Life gets better when it is all done - well about a fortnight after rads finishes, but what is a fortnight between friends :-)

Hugs to all! Many new 'faces' - welcome! and I hope that you all move swiftly and uneventfully through treatment and get back to the rest of your lives asap. I was diagnosed on the last day of Feb. 2013 and it seems like a century ago, and a month ago at the same time. I found it helpful to remind myself that all I had to do was to to show up for treatment etc, one day at a time.

I have my last Herceptin infusion tomorrow. I desperately hope that this is my last visit to the chemo unit and will just have ruddy Tamoxifen as a souvenir of this detour. It is hard to ignore the deep, gut-twisting feeling that the next few years are "borrowed time" but I am trying hard to be super-rational about it. It was lovely to get out and tidy my garden up this weekend, plant some summer bulbs and start making plants for it. It was snowing this time last week, so the faithful daffs are just beginning to poke their leaves out of the ground and spring is on its way...

Throwing DDs extra chocolate on the tea trolley - treat or torture? :-)

UK chocolate is only ever a treat

Congratulations on getting to yr last visit to the chemotherapy unit......hopefully xx