Newbie - My Story

Thank you both for your wonderful welcomes. I had made a few litle posts before I took the plunge and posted my story, but I am glad I did.

Chris - our journeys seem similar, my surgeon decided against any further axillary clearance becasue Ihave a disability to my Right arm and it is weak and causes problems and the risk was too high of weakening my Left arm and leaving me totally inconpacitated, and totally reliant on someone for everyday life activities (my husband is already my carer, but needing someone to do the intimate things I can do for my self - not if I can help it). My surgeon says there is a very very low likelyhood that any of my other nodes are involved because the one sentinel node that was involved "only had a few cancer cells".

like you once chemo is finished the other breast is coming off, as I also would never believe a mammogram again, and I would always have the fear of it returning and being undiscovered in my head, and with my family history I have been told I have a higher than normal risk of getting it again 9not related to this one, but another breast cancer).

Like you I have one perky book at the moment and the 2nd will follow. We willhave the perkiest boobs in the nursing home, later in life <LOL>. I have no concerns or regrets about choosing the mastectomy for the first breast over lumpectomy, and I left it up to the Dr about the nipple I was happy to have it taken but he said when he went it, it was no where near the tumour and the margins around it were all clear so he kept it (it isn't attached to anything but the blood supply so it is just cosmetic, but it does look good (Not that I would have cared either way I would have just had a new one tattooed on later if it was taken), we thought we were going to loose it for the 1st 5 or so days after surgery becasue the nipple went very dark and didn't look good, but then it came back and pinked up properly (I have some light scaring on it from some blister and things I got during this process and from what they think was a reaction to thesteri strip dressing on my wounds).

I know I will have to take a hormone therapy after I finish chemo and herceptin therapies (in 12 months time and believe it will be for a minimum of 5 yrs and the drug will depend on if the chemo sents me into temporary or permanent menopause).

We seem to have something else in common , looking at your picture you also seem to have a fur baby - I do too.

I see my oncologist tomorrow and my 2nd cycle of chemo is set for Monday but as I have ben in the ER all day, and the cold I had, which turned into a chest infection, seems to have become a deep lung infeaction, I am not sure if they will pus it back , but I have been on oral antibiotics for 5 days now and have another 5 days worth as well to take, and they said it looked like it was resolving itself. I have right sided pain along the base of my rib cage, when began in the front and travelled around to my back over time, they suspected gall stones but the ultrasound came back all clear,so they aren't 100% certain what is is/ was but it seems to have resloved itself.