Forum Discussion
Invasive Lobular Cancer (ILC)
Hi all, I have just discovered that ILC is lumped into general ductal breast cancer. America research have started to recognise there are huge differences. Treatment in Australia is the same as ducta...
@KezzaG It's pretty common for the end of treatment to inspire depression and anxiety. My advice would be "get thee to a counsellor". I fell apart pretty much at this time and I've heard the same from many people. I saw a psychologist for a few months afterwards. While you're going through active treatment, it feels like you have a plan and are doing something positive towards recovery, then all of a sudden you're in freefall. I don't know your exact situation, but the general followup is reviews with the oncologist and surgeon on a regular basis. For me, having finished chemo and rads last September, I have been seeing my onc about every 3 months and surgeon every 6. At some stage my onc will cut me loose to 6 months and I will alternate between the two of them so that I see one every quarter. Are you going on to some sort of hormone therapy? I did ask my onc about recurrence and anxiety. His comment was that I needed to try to manage the anxiety and live as though I was cancer-free because to do otherwise, was not living. He didn't suggest that it would be easy. I'm doing my best but I do find the side effects from the hormone therapy do hinder this significantly. I'm also finding out that the hormone therapy may be more important for long-term survival than the chemo so I am determined to find a way to manage this. There's no easy answer - we all hope to be on the side of the stats that is good but obviously some will be on the other side. I think positivity can be over-rated - we can try for it but most of us fail. I'll settle for management. I don't have any evidence of cancer at the moment and until I find out otherwise, that's all that I'm working with.
As to info about ILC - you won't find a lot because there's not much there. The American lobby site seems to be the best source of knowledge (at least that I've found). But not surprising as it's a much larger population base. I do remember my onc saying not to read too much into the predictor calculators because they're based on ductal and the results won't be valid for ILC.
As to info about ILC - you won't find a lot because there's not much there. The American lobby site seems to be the best source of knowledge (at least that I've found). But not surprising as it's a much larger population base. I do remember my onc saying not to read too much into the predictor calculators because they're based on ductal and the results won't be valid for ILC.