**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

Someone asked how far into the wait I am. I saw my GP on Tuesday at the evening clinic, so I guess the letter would go off the next day (or email? that would be quicker but I'm not sure whether they still do it all by letter).

I'm 49 (just), no history of breast cancer in the family (very small family though).

2MadBoys very happy for you.

PerfidiousPanda

My appointment is on Monday and I already considered the worst scenarios (I think) of course including not being able to see my little boys growing up. 10 days wait is just far too long for somebody like me.
I read lots and lots about symptoms including some doctor training presentations (ha ha). However, it is almost impossible to know for sure until the tests are done even for the doctors. There may be other reasons for your symptoms too.
I am not talking to anybody at the moment (except my husband but I am not sure that he understands) and this forum is so helpful. I feel like telling people anything just before Xmas is just not right but not easy to keep everything inside.

I am trying to do some meditation at the moment and it seems to help. I am not a religious person at all by the way.

I can recommend Louise Hay strongly. She has many books and videos on You Tube. You can start from somewhere. I feel it is helping me to stay calm a little bit. Check out her affirmations.

I want to thank everybody who helped and also I sincerely hope that everybody will make a full recovery as soon as possible.

Hello all, welcome sadly to all the new people in the middle of the dreadful waiting. I hope all clinics are running smoothly approaching Christmas and no one is left waiting longer than necessary.

Lily, congratulations to your son, how nice to have a proud mum moment.

Boobz, hope your recovery continues to go well and your predictions are very wrong. I bet you'll feel better when you can start exercising again, be careful not to give yourself two black eyes!

Royal, how many more sessions do you have to go? I always notice your nocturnal posts.

Nanny, sorry if you've already said but what day do you get your results next week? Hope you're holding up ok.

We're off to collect Dd2 from university at 11. It's the end if her first term and I'm looking forward to having her home for a few weeks.

Good luck and handholding to everyone waiting for appointments.

I'm really bored at the moment, and I am desperate to feel fresh air on my face. I have been in this ward since Sunday. It feels strange not having a breast, but I am not in very much pain at all. I have just been taking paracetamol. Drain came out today which is great, so now I'm only attached to my IV meds. Hopefully home tomorrow or Sunday. Cabin fever has really set in.

Hi Cratos - I hope it's good news for you. Yes, I'm doing the worst case scenario thing too - even watching 'The Apprentice', I wondered whether it would be my last year of watching rubbish winter TV shows!

I think the inverted nipple is worrying me most - I can't see what it could be other than a tumour drawing the skin in. It was that I went to the GP with and then she found a lump as well.

Mysillydog - will you find out today when you can go home? I hope all goes well.

mrs results are on Wednesday, or should I say my appointment is. I have TRIED to contact the BCN's at the hospital, as mine is away. Asking if one of them could just look at the results and just tell me if it's clear or not....that's all I want to know! Happy to wait till Wednesday for more details, if there are any! But this not knowing is horrible!

But no response from hospital yet 😡

If all else fails I will be on the phone to my BCN first thing on Monday!

Hope you have a great time with your Dd xx

mysillydog hope you get to go home soon, and wishing you a speedy recovery xx

Hope everyone has a nice weekend xx

perfidiouspanda welcome to the thread and hope your fears are not confirmed. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in June and it wasn't until my treatment started that i calmed down inside and stopped worrying about dying and leaving my two boys and all. Even now I find I aoetimes tend to lapse into morbid thoughts especially when I see or hear so ething sentimenatl about family and festivities, etc.
Sadly cancer immediately conjures up these horrible scenarios of our demise and the pain of loss, and so, for me, limiting the people who know about my condition has been my way of coping( i may or may not be right!) but i just felt that if the whole world knew I would not be able to go about as "normally" as possible. So far it has worked and I am dealing with this whole condition to the best of my ability.
I truly hope you are blessed with good news and even if it is not the news you hoped for, remember we have come a long way in treating cancer and many on this thread and around the world can attest to that.
mrs yes sadly my sleep cycle is still quite erratic:( i am so happy for you to have your DD coming home! I have four more cycles to go and am imagining the last one in my head(does tha make me crazy I wonder!)
mysillydog you will be out of there before you know it! Just think of the yummy festive food waiting to be consumed when you get home:)

To everybody else, be safe and warm and restful.

Hi PerfidiousPanda, and welcome to this bit.
Inverted nipple can be the result of an infection, which can also cause a temporary lump. So it may not be cancer. But all GPs are told, wisely, to refer people on for the proper tests. Usually within a fortnight. Many get test results same day. Take a sensible calm friend and arrange a treat for afterwards.
9 out of 10 lumps aren't cancer.
If it's cancer, 9 out of 10 cancer lumps are not deadly any more.
So the odds of it being cancer AND a deadly sort of cancer are now 1 in 100.
No guarantees, of course.
Modern treatments have become very good indeed, for nearly everyone.
I've been here five years after mine, and so have nearly all the fine women who joined this thread since then.

Cancer in a boob can't kill you. Totally impossible.
Some cancers just stay there, minding their own business.
Others sneak out into the lymph nodes under the arms. Still can't kill you from there.
A few, if not treated in good time, sneak out into another place in the body. Even if they do that, the modern stuff can zap many of them to death....or just put them into 'sleep mode' for years. I've lovely friends who have had just that experience. Still holidaying away with their families, and going down the pub, and enjoying life. Just living with cancer. Even this week, there's another huge international breast cancer conference going on, with new treatments revealed for all sorts of it.

So, no need to think you are a gonner. Stay firmly away from Google, because it contains out of date rubbish. Treatment, if it is cancer, is not fun. But this is a very treatable thing now, for nearly everyone.
And you'd know if you were about to cop it, because you would already be desperately ill.
Hope that helps a bit with the anxiety. Though the waiting bit is just terrifying. We've all been there. Totally normal to be eek. Sending virtual

Amberlight - can you point me in the direction of the results of this conference, with the new treatments etc?

Thanks!

global.onclive.com/conference-coverage/sabcs-2015/atezolizumab-nab-paclitaxel-combo-shows-high-response-rates-in-tnbc is one of the early news reports. One sort of breast cancer is 'triple negative'. Until now, it hasn't had many good 'superdrugs'. It does now.

The main results will be out next week after the conference finishes. I'll put up the links, and am happy to do some translating of technical...but I am not a doctor. Just someone who reads this stuff every day. And teams should know their new stuff, of course. Just makes it handy to know in advance what to ask about, for some.

Thank you both so much - set me off again!

Royalmama- I can't see that I've had any infection. There has been no pain, no discharge, no bleeding, just almost instant inversion. I'm such an anxious person anyway, although the world doesn't know that, I hide it very well, and I probably seem like someone who copes with everything. Actually, I'm bipolar as well, and very few people know that, because I never let them see it.

amberlight - thank you for all your good sense, you're absolutely right, I just fear that I'm going to absolutely crumble at the first needle and be rubbish. I don't think I even want to tell them that, or about being bipolar, because then people make assumptions. I will either be in 'I Can Cope With Anything' mode, which has a price, or I'll collapse! I don't feel ill at all - well, I did a couple of weeks ago as I had an awful cold that I think may actually have been flu (I know people say they have flu when it's really just a bad cold, but this really was awful), but I have no pain, haven't lost weight, no sickness or anything at all.

I saw some of those conference findings yesterday - the one on mastectomy vs other options was very interesting. What did you think of that?

The one saying that in early stage breast cancer, it's quite possibly better to have a lumpectomy rather than mastectomy? Makes sense - though I agree with the article-writer; it's likely to be because with a lumpectomy, you usually get radiotherapy. Not always with mastectomy. And radiotherapy is usually very effective at killing leftover cancer. Not an expert, but that seems a likely reason.

Yes, that one - I would have read that type of thing ordinarily anyway, just because it's interesting, I'm not morbidly following it all . . . well, not entirely . . .

Amber is that the conference taking place in the US? My onco is attending some big conference in the states.

Yes. Looks like the abstracts are now available. www.abstracts2view.com/sabcs15/sessionindex.php?day=Tuesday&session=SS1&#session_SS1

Hi Everybody,
I have 2 questions I need your help with

1-Have you ever come across anybody in this thread or elsewhere who rejected a treatment ?
or
2- Has anybody changed their diet (or advised to make changes to their diet by NHS staff?

Thank you for your input in advance.

Cratos No for 1, but for 2 my Oncologist told me to eat less cake! (I am of a robust build and he is too but had been on a diet/exercise regime monitored by his wife). If on chemo, don't eat grapefruit. That's about the only food restriction I know of.
Of course, if you told your Onc that your diet consisted entirely of Big Macs she/he might suggest changes!

Hi evryone and welcome to the newbies, hope your stays are short but if not we can help you through the the treatment.

cratos I have read about a woman local to me who has refused conventional treatment for over 2 years and has been treating her tumours with black salve and other methods like diet/homeopathy etc. She has however just had a mastectomy after all. anndevlin.wordpress.com/

I have not been advised about diet except to eat what i feel like during chemo and to avoid live/bio/unpasteurised dairy. I am however trying green smoothies daily in an attempt to up my fruit/veg intake and eating healthily to try to maintain my immune system. When I have finished with chemo i intend to take some supplements and drink less and excercise more.

I am currently riding out effects of chemo no3 and went for a walk today and a bit of shopping- feel exhausted now!

Hi everyone
Quick check in from me. Nice to see the thread so chatty and looking after each other as usual though always a shame that new folks have to join us.
I'm ticking along though full of a cold at the mo. Christmas preps well behind schedule as work is very busy. The last 2 Decembers I've been at home having a leisurely recovey from mastectomies so it's a bit of a shock having to combine work and Christmas again!
Wishing all a good weekend and some time free from fretting if possible.

Is this thread still going? My breasts cancer was picked up at a routine mammogram - in late November - confirmed by biopsy last FRiday..stage one grade 2...... waiting for an MRI on MOnday - ultra sound doesnt look like its in my lymph nodes but you cant really tell from that I dont think ..... today was my twins nativity play - they are six - I am a 53 year single mum and I am in despair - I was euphoric when they said it was stage one and congratulated myself for pushing for yearly mammograms ...(there's family history).....but today I woke up and I still have breast cancer - its so depressing - and I am so convinced its spreading....and this waiting is too much.... want to get on and deal with it.....I could go private to speed things up but everyone says wait for these wheels of the NHS to turn....

roselover - I am so sorry to hear that. I'm new here, and I don't know as much as other people but I can relate to your fear and depression. If you can afford to go private though, wouldn't that be better, to speed things up? Is there a reason people say to wait for the NHS treatment? I could be completely wrong, but I thought it was all the same, apart from being seen much more quickly if you went private - and if the waiting is too much, as you say, then go for it if that's what you want.

Roselover, I didn't want to read and run but I'll have to be brief. I too had the option of having private treatment. My diagnosis 18 months ago was the same as yours although I didn't have an mri. I was having surgery nine days later, then having radiotherapy six weeks after that as soon as I had recovered enough.

I don't think it could have been done more quickly if I'd had private treatment. The other thing to consider is that if you use the NHS there will be a whole multidisciplanary team discussing your treatment plan as opposed to just one consultant. That gave me a lot of confidence in what they were recommending. Please be assured that with breast cancer the NHS is excellent.

Fresta and Lillymad

Thank you for your responses.
I cannot believe about the lady who is doing Black Salve treatment. She is brave. I am going to follow her.
I read that chemo side effects sometimes outweigh the benefits but more research needed and also, every case is different of course. I hope I am not offending anybody by asking these questions. I really wouldn't like to do that.

In the past watched a couple of documentaries since I am interested how diet and vitamins can effect our health and wellbeing. And there were some discussions that the main reasons of cancer are known (such as chemicals & food additives, plastics used, extensive farming, milk & meat industry) but they are not stopped since companies are more interested in making profits and keep the wheels turning etc. And for Pharmaceutical companies & also for hospitals, cancer treatment industry is big and it employs many people.
Once again I hope I am not upsetting anybody by writing this.

roselover

I am very sorry to hear what you are going though. Ladies here are very supportive. You are in the right place.

I also had an option to go private for my initial tests etc.

But GP insisted that I don't go private since she said that more than one doctor makes decisions in NHS about your case and the decision is healthier.
Waiting is very hard though.

I did a lot or reading on the ph diet. My diet was quite acidic and in modern day living most people's are, which isn't great, and was told to keep my alkaline higher. I did follow this for a while. Along with taking bicarbonate of soda with maple syrup. I'm a stage 4, so there's no cure for me. It might be coincidence but my cancer stabized for 2 years but to be honest it just got a bit much so it slid away from it. I was of the thinking that fuck it if I'm dying I might as well enjoy what I've got left. I have heard lots of positive stories from it though so maybe not to be sniffed at!