All good.
Dr French was really happy at how good my boob was 12 months after surgery & rads - most impressed with my Rad Onc!! Apparently the radiation really can change the entire 'feel' of the breast tissue - He was amazed there was no external rads scarring or internal thickening of tissue also from the rads. He thought BC Boob felt quite natural and (even tho he did the surgery) was also impressed wth my 'lack of' scarring around the nipple where it had been 'relocated' after surgery.
He is fully understanding my anguish over my hand/thumb pain in particular - and for the 1% reduction in recurrence - agrees that quality of life is SO important. He said about 30% of women he sees has the 'worse side effects' - whilst some get none.
He said that in 'my case' for a 1% reduction in recurrence - he would have to see 100 women for just the 1 to be unlucky enough to have a recurrence - a total lottery - so is it worth it to be miserable for 5 years? If I had a higher grade tumour & it had been found in my nodes - it would be a totally different story & he would try to convince me to stay on it .... SO .. I will put it past my Medical Onc to maybe try Tamoxifen when I see her next - so that I know I have tried a real mix of drugs (and it is the longest running hormone drug out there!) If I then give that another 6 months .... we'll see how i go from there. So I will possibly be trading incredibly sore hands/thumbs for more hot flushes (roughly) .... tho who knows - I may just tolerate it better than the AIs, so worth a try.
He will also be contacting Breastscreen to request my last film, taken 6 months before I was diagnosed - and check to see if he could detect the tumour in it. Cos they obviously didn't know that I had been diagnosed - and if they aren't advised of their 'rejects' (like me, where my GP found the tumour) - they only have their own '100% detection rate' showing - even tho in the covering letter with your results, they say that it is not 100% sure that you 'don't have BC' when they say it was clear ....
Many thanks for the best wishes ..... I reckon I really had worked thru most of my anxiety when I went down the month earlier for the wrong date!! DUH! So it sort of worked in my favour today - i was quite calm!
take care ladies xx
