Introduce yourself!

Hi Cosette,

I'm Marina and have just turned 35. I was diagnosed last year (ER/PR/HER2+ve) when I was 37 weeks pregnant with my first baby and only 10 days after moving into our first home with my husband.

Since then, we've had a gorgeous baby girl! In her first few weeks of life I had a sentinel node biopsy, axillary clearance (1 node positive) and egg retrieval as a means of potentially having another child down the track, although I'm umming and ahhing about this, knowing it was in pregnancy that the cancer initially developed.

After 6 months of chemo, I recently had a mastectomy and pathology showed no remaining cancer cells!!! I am still on herceptin and I just started zoladex. I see a radiation oncologist in the first week of May to plan radiotherapy.

I haven't had genetic testing yet but have been advised to consider having my ovaries removed once we've completed our family so am currently thinking about that, knowing it means I'll likely go through menopause before I turn 40 - I'm somewhat concerned about more poor bones!!

I enjoy cooking and also love playing with my little girl who is now 8 months old and starting to develop her own personality - which, unfortunately for this week is somewhat grumpy (she's teething though, poor thing!) I also like playing Scrabble when time allows and one day, when things calm down a bit with treatment and having a baby, I would love to get a dog.

Well, that's her now, waking up from her nap (well before she was meant to) so I'd better go!

Sorry to hear of your diagnosis.  Unfortunately women in Australia are not told they have dense breasts which is revealed on first mammogram.  As we know Mammograms only pick up 50% of breast cancer.  Women with dense breast need to be have breast scan as well which still only picks up 50% but have them together and you have 75% chance of picking up bc.  MRI is only scan that picks up 100%.  I now have an American surgeon who doesnt muck around.  He does 6 month breast examination followed by an annual MRI. My previous breast surgeon wouldn't do MRI saying too many false positives/negatives but my new Surgeon doesn't believe that.  I now feel confident.  I am 4 years post bc now and feeling wonderful.  You will too..  

Hi Kath,

There is a group on here called " The lost Libido Ladies".  There is much discussion about vaginal issues and UTI's.  You might like to join it?

Paula :)

A blog about those vaginal issues being resolved would be helpful for many of us if you wish to share.

I think the ovary removal is only beneficial for woman pre menopause. As post menopause estrogen is made elsewhere in the body.

H i had a lumpectomy first and the margins werent clear so had a masectomy. The wound did not heal well so had a wound debreivement op. My son knows mummy has a big ouchie and the doctors cut it of. Also knows i have to take medicine that will make my hair fall out. He told his school teacher that he was scared of mummy with no hair. That breaks my heart. So have bought a wig and hats.

Hi I'm  Kathy and I'm  51 years old. I found a close to surface R)  breast lump on the 17th December 2015...5 weeks after my annual mammogram which showed no changes. My original biopsy showed a tumour less than 1.4cm es+ her2+ grade 2.  So with delay  due to Xmas and New Year I eventally saw a breast surgeon on 4/1/16 and opted on a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction on 25th January. My mastectomy biology showed a grade 3 and the tumour size was 1.9cm. Sentinal node biopsies were clear as were bone and CT scans. Due to paternal familial history in Scotland of breast and ovarian cancer in multiple Aunts and cousins, I await further genetic counselling. I undertook this 20 years ago and hense had annual mammograms since age 40. Unfortunately nobody ever mentioned that I still had very dense breast tissue. My treatment plan is 4 cycles  AC chemo, 12 weeks taxol, 12 months herceptin and at least 5 years of a hormone blocker. I've  just had a portacath insertion to make all this easier. I feel lucky my cancer was found early but terrified also of recurrence, which I guess we all are. I have 3 sons, 20, 18 and 16, only 2 left at home, a husband of 22 years, 1 dog and 5 cats. I was working full time as a mental health clinician until diagnosis but have taken extended leave for treatment and recovery. Life certainly has been shite since December. Kath

Sorry you've had such a rough trot with the medication. that's awful for you.

that's the tough thing about it all. none of us has a crystal ball!

a lady I know suggested getting my ovaries out at some stage. at least that cuts off a lot of the oestrogen.  

None of it is easy.

thanks for responding. xo

My sister told me to have it. Once she said that I dared not because in the back of my mind if I got secondary breast cancer I know what she would say.LOL. I had clear margins and clear lymph nodes but did have small vascular invasion so that was the real reason. I thought if anything had got into blood stream chemo would mop up. I did not do well with chemo. I was very sick and I blame chemo for my system not tolerating aramatose inhibitors which gave me extra 20% survival rate. We are all very different and our bodies react very differently. Again, had thete not been vein involvement no way would I opt for 4 rounds of chemo for 4%.  Am I glad I did it? There is no way of determining that as I will never know if I would have been able to tolerate aramatose inhibitors if I hadn't 'gone ahead. Nor will i know if it helped me survive or not. There is just no way to tell. God luck..

Hi SuzieQ, you sound like you were in the same position I am at the moment. Chemo is going to give me about 2% benefit at the present so I have opted for the Oncotype DX test to see if it will give me a clear decision. I am finding it very hard to decide to have chemo or not.

Can I ask you what helped you make the decision to have chemo?

How did you go with it?

And are you glad you had it?

Catherine