10 Myths and Facts About Male Breast Cancer

@Sister According to the search tool here @Matt last post was in August 2018. He'd finished chemo and was lined up for surgery. Hopefully he will return to update us. 

This post has made me wonder if anyone has heard from @Matt ?  He was diagnosed in 2018, from memory (although I don't trust my memory very much).

@AllyJay I’ve been married 41 years and my husband is the same with both tests. He did something to his ankle a few years ago and I wanted him to get it checked out but it wasn’t until our daughter told him to go see the doctor that he did. He’d broken it but is so stubborn over things. If he had a lump on his chest he probably would ignore it @traveltext even though he watched an Aunty die from breast cancer cause she ignored her lump.

@Blossom1961 Thanks, a terrible but all too familiar situation. I edit dories for the US-based Male Breast Cancer Coalition, and I hear this all the time. In my situation, I had three visits to my GP over three months and I had to insist, finally, on a scan. Not once did she examine my breast. As I knew, the lump was breast cancer, in fact Stage IIIB Inflammatory Breast Cancer. Fortunately, I received excellent treatment and six years later there's no evidence of the disease.

Doctors need to be made more aware also. We had a relative in law with a lump in his breast which every doctor he went to ignored. Eventually a doctor, over six months later, sent him for tests just to shut him up. Too late. The cancer was very aggressive and had spread throughout his body. He didnt recover. 

Oh dear. It’s such a simple thing to do and bowel cancer is one of the few cancers where the word ‘cure’ is used, if detected early. My husband’s bowel cancer was detected early and so far so good. Women are much more likely to accept tests and slightly invasive procedures, but you have to wonder why? 

I don't know if most men are alike, but I suspect so in many regards. I've been married for forty two years and my husband refuses to do the bowel cancer kit test (I believe it is being upgraded this year) His response has always been "There's no way I'm pooing in a pot and putting it in the post." On the subject of a prostate exam I get " If you think I'm going to let some doctor stick his (or her) finger up my bum...forget it." His mother died of bowel cancer and I'm the boobless wonder. I just don;t get it.

I will admit, I didn't know that there was such a thing as male breast cancer until I was standing outside a local auction and heard two elderly male neighbours talking to each other.  One said to the other, "you know I have had breast cancer, don't you?".  This was before my own diagnosis.

It's so hard, I have metastatic breast cancer and I can't even get my own daughters or sister to have regular mammograms, let alone the men in my family to even consider it might happen to them, it breaks my heart. 

Thanks @June1952 I miss the women here too. Myself and one other guy appear to be the only members. I don’t come here often, because I guess, without any men to support, I feel the women are obviously very able to help each other.