I was diagnosed on the 4th December. Wide local excision the next day, re-excision a week later. Pathology results two days later on the 14th December. Then my breast surgeon went away for a month.
The next week, highly distressed, I saw a counsellor twice. Then she went away for a month.
I saw a plastic surgeon on the 18th December. Then he went away for a month.
I met my oncologist on the 20th December. She managed to hang on until after Christmas when I saw her on 3rd January. Then she went away for three weeks. Halfway through chemo now and saw her for only the third time two days ago.
Did the EndoPredict test to see if chemo would have a curative benefit. Normally takes 2 - 3 days. As it was Christmas it took 9 days.
The Breast Care nurse was ill in her last week in the office and then on leave for three weeks. No one returned my calls.
17 months before my diagnosis my younger sister died from breast cancer. I am now raising her two traumatised children. My mother also had it at my age but survived. 10 months before my sister died, my sister-in-law died from a brain tumour. Six weeks after that my father-in-law moved in with us. So when I was diagnosed I was very very angry, then very very sad (which continues to this day), and I find myself with no emotional reserves.
Abandoned is an emotive term but that is how I felt. To be fair, my lovely breast surgeon did send a couple of supportive emails while he was on holiday, something I did not expect. However I was REELING from my diagnosis and treatment, with four children, a husband and father-in-law to look after, Christmas Dinner to plan, prepare, cook and serve to 13 people (including a stray lovelorn Finn visiting my youngest sister...), and filled with dread and literal panic about chemotherapy.
I don't know what can be done about this. I bare no ill will towards any of my clinicians. They all deserve holidays and my life is of no personal concern to them. I am not the only person to get sick at Christmas... I just wish they'd pointed me in the direction of some sort of back up service and support, to answer my questions (some as basic as wound care). If it happened now and they all disappeared, I think I'd know what to do, but in the first weeks after diagnosis, and the whirlwind of early treatment, I was all at sea and actively distressed.
Coping at/with Christmas is definitely an area that needs attention.
Chemo 3 tomorrow, wish me luck.
