**Tamoxigang 53** Roll up, roll up... Anyone with any cancer (or test-waiting) welcome!

[MarthaCostello]

Good evening all,

The old thread had nearly run out when I posted so I have taken the liberty of starting a new one before it fills up completely.

I hope the title is OK - there isn't actually that much room, I was trying to fit in that people should come along even if they haven't been diagnosed yet.

If you're new here welcome to the Tamoxigang thread. This is a great place for anyone with any type of cancer (it originally started out as those taking Tamoxifen for breast cancer, hence the name, but has expanded). Please introduce yourself and make yourself comfortable! You're more than welcome here if you haven't been diagnosed yet too, sometimes people find it helpful to talk through their fears whilst waiting for results. And we will hold your hand until you find out, and hopefully wave you on your way with an all-clear :)

There is almost always someone around to chat, or to answer any questions. Nothing is off-limits here. This is somewhere to offload any fears and frustrations, in a safe place where someone will have been there before.

I hope everyone has been enjoying the gorgeous summery weather

Royalmama, how is your stomach doing?

Sorry to gate crash. Mind if I take a seat (again! I was here over a year ago in a similar circumstance and remember what a great bunch you are!).

Waiting to get a Breast lump checked out (next week) and am pregnant so seriously hormonal and scared too. The lump itself is a bit of a weird one- sometimes I can feel it but then it seems to disappear. I'm clinging to this like its a good sign? But I think I might be making that up to make myself feel better!

Is it safe to poke my head up again yet?

Staygold, I definitely found that my under arm was much more painful than my breast scar after my surgery, it felt like I had a rough brick lodged under there. Great news that your nodes were clear.

Hiccup, moan away, it's what this thread is for. Sounds like you have good reason. I can relate to feeling physically quite well but emotionally very uncertain.

Hell and zippy, take a seat while you do the dreaded two week wait. Lets hope it turns out to be no more than that. Have a good rant or whimper, in usual circumstances there's usually someone around to talk to. Lets hope there won't be any more disruption, MN is performing a serious and desperately needed function with this thread.

Hi Zippyswife. Hopefully it's just a benign hormonal cyst.

For those who have had a mx: what special tops and shirts will I need after surgery?

Well ladies, I've had another unexpected bleed this morning, just as things were calming down. I've spoken to the gp who has booked me in for an examination on Friday, here we go again. Fed up, I'm trying to get dd2 ready for university in three weeks, I don't have time for this.

Wish I could think of some wise and comforting words MrsRhode .

I can offer sympathy and .

And my experience of major surgery for cancer co inciding with son off to uni . In the end I had to give in ,stop trying to micro manage and trust in the kindness of strangers . It was almost liberating .

But that feeling of being pulled in two directions was ghastly and stays with me .

You have no choice but to prioritise your health .

Thanks ginger, there's nothing I can do until I've seen the gp on Friday and find out if they want to order another pelvic scan. I know they're worried about uterine cancer because of the tamoxifen. I don't know how common it is, I'm not a great one for googling unnecessarily. I just really don't want this to be happening again.

Hey guys, I too am awaiting my referral under the 2 week rule. Its a worrying time isnt it?
Ive been having abdo pains with the occasional blood in urine. My doc referred me for an ultrasound thinking it may be kidney stones. About 3 hours after the scan the docs called me. They found a lump in my bladder, about 3cm. My appointment with the urologist is next weds.
In the meantime my abdo pains have flared up again so am feeling sorry for myself
I dont feel i can talk to anyone in RL as yet, do any of you feel like that when awaiting a diagnosis?

For those awaiting a lumpectomy, i know exactly what you are going through. I had one myself many years ago, turned out to be fatty tissue.

Going to try to get some sleep now but just wanted to say hi

Xxx

Thanks everybody. It's good to have somewhere to have a moan without worrying my family and friends.

I saw my consultant today who confirmed it was a kidney cancer, stage 3 which is aggressive and bad, but he is confident he got all of it with a good margin and it was confined to the bottom of my kidney and small. I really want to believe him as from rooting around on cancer websites etc, kidney cancers don't respond much to chemo etc so it's not good if it does pop up somewhere else. I'm on 6 monthly CT scans and follow up with him for now.

I know what you mean about not wanting to talk to people in real life. I just don't know what to say tbh. Most of the time I'm fine and people want to hear it's all ok but other times it's just not. Random things will set me off for no real reason.

for everyone on here.

rivercam are you around?

I saw the gp, another new one, today about my unexpected bleeding this week. She examined me, couldn't see or feel anything abnormal but rather than send me for another pelvic scan ( had one in March) she is sending me straight to gynae under the two week rule.

Her thoughts are its a fibroid as there was some suggestion on the pelvic scan, or it's uterine cancer or some precursor to it which is obviously the worst option. It could also be my body just insisting on having a period even though the tamoxifen is supposed to suppress them, she seemed quite confident it could be this. It's the best but probably awkward option because if it keeps happening I'll have to keep having investigations.

She said they would do a procedure to remove a bit of tissue, endometrial aspiration I'm guessing. She did mention a hysteroscopy too, which I seem to remember you saying was rather unpleasant. So, if they suggest this would you recommend asking for a GA? I feel all out of courage after last year and dread the thought of hospitals and procedures again.

hiccup at least you have the facts now, I don't think surgeons tend to embellish the facts so if he feels he got it all then he probably did. It's still early days though and absolutely normal for your thoughts and emotions to be all over the place.

Hi all, is it safe to return? I've been lurking but now back with my shiny new password.

Mrs, i'm back for you....what a total pain to have another bleed and crap timing with uni looming.....flaming typical. Anyway, I've had 2 hysterroscopies. The first one was squirmy and eyewatering and i said id have a general if i had to have it done again. The second one was organised quickly so I cried a bit and wimped out and the nice doctor put loads of local in my fanny cervix and I had a lovely nurse holding my hand and distracting me the whole way through. It made all the difference. Dr consulted me the whole way through. I had a polyp that needed to be removed. He offered to stop and come back for a GA at a later date but I was coping fine so he continued and lopped it off. All histology turned out fine. My advice would be to try it without a GA but feel free to be an anxious patient and get all the support you need to make it as comfortable as poss. You have earned it my love. Hope it turns out ok for you - it most likely will but we all know how important a good result is.

Sorry to to give a personal response to everyone else. I read every post and feel for us all dealing with these horrible things.

River - hope you are ok. Sometimes deciding not to do anything right now is very much the right decision.

Bugger...meant to say ' not to give' obvs....

Hi marshy, thank you. I thought you had been through this too but I wasn't quite sure. The gp thought that they would probably do investigations straight away rather than calling me back for them so I'm rather worried about what I might be faced with. Stupidly I watched a YouTube film of the procedure earlier, it looked eye watering. Was the local anaesthetic in the form of a gel, please tell me it wasn't a needle in the cervix?

I had a blood test whilst I was at the surgery and the nurse who did it was telling me she used to be a gynae nurse and had seen the procedure done many times. She was trying to tell me it didn't hurt but I couldn't quite believe her.

The timing is rubbish, it was bil funeral on Monday (cancer), Wednesday I started bleeding and today I have two very spooked daughters, one about to go to university. DH is due to be in America in a weeks time so might not be here when I have the investigations. He's been by my side for every appt so far.

I've been reading a few papers, mostly American, which seemed to suggest that tamoxifen isn't particularly a risk for pre menopausal women. But it has to be checked out.

Thank you so much for coming back.

Well it's not honest to say it doesn't hurt because it does to some extent but I went back for a 2nd go and it was ok!

I'm pretty sure it is an injection into the cervix but I'm also fairly sure there was some anasthetic gel in there first qhich numbed it a bit so, although I agree the thought of anything sharp in that area is excruciating, the reality of that was ok.

Please do ask for support and I'm sure they will.make it as ok for you as possible. But if you need to stop, they will do. I'm guessing you will be fine. I'm no hero, honestly, and we have been through a lot already so deserve a bit of tlc.

You have a lot on your plate. What a challenging time for you. When I was googling womb stuff the thing that stayed with me was that, if there is anything serious going on bleeding is an early sign which means it's caught early and outcomes are good. Although chances still are that it's not serious. So win win really.

Hugs for you...

Ok and, in the absence of dh, prob a good idea to have someone to drive you home. I also took codeine straight away and retired to the sofa with a hot water bottle. I felt like I had a bad period pain but it subsided quite quickly.

The thing DH keeps saying is that he would expect a cancer to bleed fairly constantly, whereas this has been two very heavy bleeds, five months apart. It has been like a horrendous period. I can sort of imagine my body is just not ready to give up yet.

I may be worrying needlessly, I tend to do that, because she did say they'll probably do a different procedure first. It would be a cruel thing indeed to have another cancer.

I'm just as frightened of the examinations as the possible outcome. I'm sick of being prodded and hurt. I'm sick of seeing the fear on my daughters faces.

I will take a friend along if DH is away.

Mrs...I get it, I really do. for you. It's utterly pants and no denying. The investigations are doable. Tell them you are fed up with it all and need it to be ok.

Do you know if you are through the menopause? I asked for a blood test to give an indication of that just to help me get my head around what was happening. I was convinced my bleeding was wind down to the meno and i was facing repeated investigations if the bleeding happend again. In the end it turned out I was through the meno and it was a polyp although I had a mirena at the time which inhibits them...so goodness knows what was going on.

Just remember the chances are that it's nothing sinister and even given the outside possibility that it is, it will have been caught early and so entirely sortable.

It probably feels all the more horrible because of everything else you're dealing with at the moment. Hang on in there....

Hi marshy, I had a blood test last summer which said I was not menopausal. I'm 51 and had the mirena coil for about 4 years pre bc. I was still getting very light bleeds even on that so I suspect I'm not there yet. I feel like you do, this is my body making a last stand but I don't want to go through this each time it happens again, if ever.

Anyway, enough for tonight and thank you again for coming back to talk to me. I hope this issue is all sorted for you now.

All the best mrs...speak soon x

Hello everybody. I hope the whole hacking business is over!
I also wish to say hi to anybody new and hope we all manage to wade through these tough times holding on firm and strong.
It has been 14 days since my first chemo and I am so so relieved that I am feeling pretty okay.i am able to do my everyday stuff and besides the Port a cath being a bit of a nuisance, I am grateful. I had some stomach issues for a while but am now quite stable. Also, I managed to inject myself with the white blood cell booster for five days [ shock ] something I had never contemplated.
Perhaps the best news of all is that my biopsy came back negative and that enhanced lymph was just a reaction to the fluid buildup post surgery. What a relief that was I must say.
Now, whether every chemo session will see me feeling yuck for a few days and then ok, we still have to see. My new found worry( there always found to be new ones) is that as the chemo goes on, I will start to feel weaker etc and that I am only ok now cause I came into the first round quite healthy and fit.
Sigh..why can't I just relax [grin ]
Wishing you all the best.
Thanks hotchoc for asking about my tum tum :)
mrs hope things clear up and your mind is set to rest.

hiccup hello. I am curious about the cyst issue. Why is it so likely that a cyst can be an early sign of cancer?I thought a cyst was something different. I ask because my CT scan showed some simple cysts in my liver, but nobody bothered much about these. They just asked if I had known about them before and,of course I hadn't because I had never been scanned as such, so has no idea. Are cysts usually something to be wary about?

Hello All, I haven't posted in a while, so congtrats to everyone completing their treatments and welcome to everyone new, however long you need to hang about for. As a reminder, I was diagnosed with lobular BC last March, had a BMX in April, followed by chemo (6x DAC) followed by radiotherapy which all finished on 22nd December. Am waiting on reconstruction, which doesn't sound as straight forward as I had hoped and I am sure I will be back in the coming months for some advice. My reason for posting today, apart from catching up with all you lovely people, is to ask for some advice about finger nails. I took a tip from here during chemo and had my nails painted dark all last summer, all was well and, in fact, have had the nicest, longest, strongest nails ever ( and an expensive shellac addiction to match). However, 1 year later they have suddenly started flaking completely way and are now all painfully below the tip and ripping off as soon as they attempt to grow any longer. I can only think that this something latent from last year only now affecting the nails. Anybody else had anything similar?

Longtime lurker here, I have found this thread invaluable at times so thanks all and maybe now I am able to offer help for Hotchocforme.
I had a DMX with DIEP tummy flap reconstruction and am very happy with results and would happily share my thoughts if you are still undecided Hotchoc. Also have you seen this blog by someone who had the same?
smallboobsbigsmiles.com/about/
Considerably - read your post with interest as have my nails painted at the mo, having just had chemo 4 hoping to keep them. No advice i'm afraid but I do remember reading a post somewhere where someone had the same a while after chemo finished, I think it was on the US breastcare.org site. I'll see if I can find it. Mind you I don't think there was a solution as such.

Hello. Wondered if anyone could advise. I have my Breast clinic appointment tomorrow. if the lump is cancerous is it likely that they will know and tell me tomorrow? Is the biopsy more to confirm and diagnose the grade? I'm going alone while sis in law has the dcs and I'm over anxious about it all. Thanks for listening.

Hi Zippy

i went on my own, but the nurses were lovely, even the other women there were friendly - all partners/friends had to wait in the big waiting room anyway while we shuffled between rooms and waited.

i was surprised when the doctor told me he was 'very concerned' about my lump, but i guess they see so many they get to know.

i came away with a named nurse contact who i could/can phone at any time, i hope you come away feeling the same support, best of luck