HELP MN'ers: Cancer/Breast Cancer good news stories really, REALLY needed a.s.a.p. PLEASE.

[Snowstorm]

Dear All,

At the end of July my mother's routine mammogram showed a lump in her right breast which she didn't know was there (the lump that is!!). A couple of weeks later the lump and some lymph nodes were removed. Days later she was rushed into hospital and had a single mastectomy and the rest of her lymph nodes were removed from her right hand armpit. The results came back that all the lymph nodes tested positive and so now she's undergoing a course of strong chemotherapy, which will be followed by radiotherapy on her right hand shoulder/neck/breast area.

The reason I'm writing this is that my mother is a really wonderful, lovely, emotional and quite sensitive person (she's 66 I think) but she's finding all of this very hard and I'm really keen to get some good news stories of cancer recovery etc. as she REALLY needs it at the moment. All of this was so unexpected and it happened so quickly that in some ways she's still reeling from the shock. Her first bout of chemo a couple of weeks ago left her being very, very sick and she lost about a stone in weight in the first week. Her next session is next Wednesday (happy Halloween!) and she is ABSOLUTELY terrified and struggling to cope with this fear, regardless of how wonderful her chemo nurses and the out-of-hours support are.

My father is 74 but quite old for his age but he's been absolutely fantastic and has really risen to the occasion and is looking after her just as well as he can but we are struggling just a bit at this point to keep her positive and to keep her mind away from the possibility that all this horrible treatment might not cure her (and this from a wonderfully positive lady who's response to being told that she was going to need a wig - and indeed her hair's almost completely dropped out already - was to ask if she could keep it afterwards for the dressing up box for her grandchildren!).

So ... sorry that this message has been so very long-winded but if anyone has any time to write any positive stories (they don't have to be long) about going through cancer and coming out the other side (particularly breast cancer and women who've had to undergo chemo with or without radiotherapy) then that would help my family out more than you would imagine and we would be INCREDIBLY grateful because I will forward them to her.

Thank you SO much in advance.
Yours most sincerely,
Snowstorm

I'm so sorry i don't have any personal experience of this but i wish you and your family all the very best.

My mum is now 3 years free from breast cancer. She had a lumpectomy and radiotherapy. Chemo was recommended but she chose not to have it as the stats for it working didn't really outweigh the side effects in her opinion. The treatments have come on so much even in the last ten years. Best wishes to your mum and all your family - it's a difficult time but you'll all come through it.

I'm sorry, I also have no personal experience of this, but I'm sending you positive vibes, I'm hoping for good news (no reason there wouldn't be) I'm expecting that the fact that they found the lump through mammogram rather than symptoms is a good sign in that it's been caught early ??? Has your Mum got access to specialist nurses and Macmillan nurses? Have you tried the various cancer and breast cancer websites?I'm sure that there will be some inspirational stories on there. Good luck, thinking of you all.

Hi Snowstorm, my mum was diagnosed 5 years ago, she was 61.

It was tough, esp for my dad who seemed at a complete loss for 6 months. She had mastectomy v quickly then chemo and radiotherapy - she managed to come and visit us for new year 2 days after her first chemo session. She was also involved in trials for herceptin. She is doing brilliantly now, hair has all grown back and she is full of life, loving being a grandma to our twins who were born a year after her op. Her top tip for post chemo nausea is to eat jelly and refreshers - not necessarily together, I think, though you never know! Good luck to your mum

MIL had, 4 years ago now, a lumpectomy followed by radiotherapy. She recovered really well but last spring at a routine check they found another unrelated lump on the other side .

She underwent mastectomy and had her lymph nodes removed, had a course of chemo (and lost her hair), another course of radiotherapy and is now on herceptin every 3 weeks and is living a totally normal life again. She found the chemo hard and the radiotherapy less so, but she got through it with a lot of family and nurse support and she's in rude health now.

Have a look at this - she had a ball and you had to see the freebies to believe them!

I wish her all the best - she can get through this, before long she'll be looking back and it will just be a memory.

a 45 yr old friend had a mastectomy and some lymph removal five yrs ago three weeks ago she was given the all clear and went back to hosp for a reconstruction.... ca diagnosed at the time as an aggressive tumour!

Thank you everyone for your kind thoughts etc. We are doing all right but have just hit a low today (I know it's bound to happen) and good news stories are needed very, very badly to help boost her spirits before next Wednesday.

Thank you for the tip about the jelly and refreshers 'inafuckingmuddle' - I'll pass that on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for the link ChubbyScotsBurd. My mother actually went to one of these events a couple of weeks ago and she really enjoyed it, although she hadn't started the chemo at that point and so a few things have come home to her since (if that makes sense!). Very timely that she's happened to contract this horrible disease during Breast Cancer Month!

Yes, she has got a Macmillian nurse contact (who I gather is wonderful - for both parents) but today they met someone who's wife died of breast cancer ... and that's sent her into a bit of a low (and because one of their 3 beloved dogs has to be put down tomorrow) so I thought I'd try and find nice positive stories to send her to perk her (and 'The Support Team') up!!

Thanks everyone so far - PLEASE KEEP THE GOOD NEWS STUFF COMING - it really will make a difference and I'm very grateful in advance.

Bump for anything that might help my mother.
TIA.
Snowstorm

I have been a long time lurker but felt I had to post on this one as it is very close to my heart!

I was diagnosed with breast cancer at 31 years old. It came as a complete shock as I was not considered to be in any of the risk groups. I had two operations (one to remove the lump and one to remove my lymph nodes), six months chemotherapy and six weeks radiotherapy. I'm not going to say the treatment was really easy and, yes, there are days when it can be be extremely tough but the reality is that it CAN and DOES WORK! The whole experience was a mixture of bad days, mediocre days and, dare I say it, good days! You just learn to accept the bad days, knowing that this is the price you have to pay to survive, and make the most of the good days if you get them. There are sometimes no short cuts in life, no way of going round an experience, all you can do is to hold on, grit your teeth and get through it ...

What keeps you going is hope ... and thankfully (in this century, in this country) there is hope and lots of it, shed loads of it in fact! I am still here TEN years later! They said I might not be able to have children as a result of the chemo but I now have two beautiful little boys who are the light of my life! I lost my hair (it grew back), I experienced the sickness and nausea (it passes and ginger nuts helped), I had chronic constipation (accupuncture worked wonders), I sometimes felt exhausted (lay low, rest, leave everything that doen't need doing) but I got through it ... I now go for yearly check-ups and I keep my hope alive ...

Everyone's experience will differ; some will suffer more than others, some less; some people will say the most unhelpful and incredibly insensitive things, some people will surprise you with their depth of understanding and support. In short, no one will experience this exactly as you do but you are not alone ... there are so many people who have gone through this and who have survived. There are no guarentees with anything in this life but there is HOPE! It's what you hold on to ... modern cancer treatments work ... FACT! I'm hoping it works for you ... after all why shouldn't it?

Wishing you all good wishes and strength to get through this ... here's hoping ...

I'm sorry your mother is going through this, Snowstorm and wish her the best. Although not a personal story I can tell you about my ds's MIL in America. She was found to have breast cancer about two yrs ago, when she was 60-ish, and went through lumpectomy etc then chemo and radiotherapy.

The chemo was v hard but she managed to work for about a third to a half of the time she was having treatment. She had a number of wigs so she could ring the changes. Radio was tiring, partly because of the travel involved. She was immensly cheered that the hospital didn't talk in terms of survival, it talks of cure rates and recurrence rates. It's as though, from the hospital's pov, recovery is the default position.

I know three ladies in their sixties who have had breast cancer over the last two or 3 years, one of them five years ago.

Can't tell you all their clinical histories as they are only acquaintances thru work but they are all fine now, they come skipping into my office from time to time (not all together - they don't actually know each other!) looking healthy and happy.

My friend was diagnosed last December and had one breast and al glands removed on NYE.
She then had 6 lots of chemo.
She did lose all of her hair, and was ill, but she has now got the all clear.

She was advised to have th eother breast removed, and also her uterus, ovaries etc. She chose ot just have the other breast removed for now.

She is 35, and started back at work last month, afetr almost a year off.
In that whole time, she was so positive and upbeat, she really does deserve some kind of award. She has changed her outlook somewhat now, and is much softer somehow.

I wish you and your mum all the best.
It is an evil disease, but it can be beaten.

My cousin had breast cancer in her early thirties when she had two small girls, imagine our shock and despair. She had a mastectomy and was put on tamoxifen, which she still takes. That was fifteen years ago! She is a vibrant lively person with loads more energy and zest for life than anyone I know.

I do believe too that BC in an older person is generally held to be more slow-moving and less agressive. There are many tales from my grandma's time of women who lived for many years after breast cancer, and died from something else at a ripe old age.

All best wishes to your Mum, how worrying for her, but there is so much they can do nowadays and the treatments really have improved. Even though the short-term side effects may be nasty, there is every hope she will live untroubled by it for many years once she has undergone them.

I am so sorry for everyone who had to go through this whether personally or because someone close had it ... but thank you SO much for these stories - I'm going to email them to my mother and I just know that each one is going to make her feel a bit stronger and a bit more positive. MagicMumkey, I know that she's going to read and re-read yours and take heart from it.

To anyone who's written - thank you SO much for taking the time, I really can't thank you enough.

To anyone else who's got any good news stories, they are still very welcome, no matter how lengthy or brief.

Thank you.

Hi,

My story is not so "current" but thought it might help to know that even in the past when treatments were quite limited there were survivors.
My greataunt developed breast cancer at the age of 40 and had a mastectomy and radiotherapy. She is now 80. She has never had a recurrence and treatments are much more advanced now.
HTH

My auntie had breast cancer, with partial mascectomy and all nodes removed from her right armpit too - found it very annoying that she couldn't life a heavy wrench to work on their old cars for quite a while.

Two years on she's totally fine and putting the weight she lost back on. She did find the therapy tiring but she's bounced right back since. And she's got a great collection of hats now too.

Thank you everyone so very much. I'm copying and pasting all your stories etc. into a big email and I'm going to send them to her on Tuesday to help her in the build up to her next chemo session which is on Wednesday and which she is absolutely terrified about. She has a real thing about feeling nauseous and being sick (even before we knew about the cancer and chemo etc.) and last time it was SOOOO bad, despite all the pills and injections and wonderful support and help she received from her brilliant GP and the fantastic out-of-hours nurses. She needs all the help she can, mentally speaking, to help her through this next session especially I think, and hopefully all this positive stuff from all you kind people is going to really help her.

Thank you again to everyone's who's written (and I hope that you and yours are well and continue to be well) and please keep going with any other 'good news' stories to anyone else who has the time.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Snowstorm

My mum was diagnosed with breast cancer about 8 years ago. Her sister was diagnosed about a week later. My mum had a lumpectomy and radiotherapy. My aunt had a mastectomy, chemo- and radiotherapy.

They are both now well.

My very, very best wishes to your mum.

And you.