Newly diagnosed

Hi Kylie, welcome to the site. So sorry you have had to join us but I hope you find lots of support here.

My tumours were HER2+ as well as hormone positive. What this means is that the growth of the cancers on the two hormone positive tumours I had were driven by female hormones (oestrogen & progesterone), whereas the HER2+ tumour had a higher than normal level of a protein called HER2. So in both instances the breast cancer cells were over-expressing particular things; either hormones or the HER2 protein. 

I had a mastectomy in April 2012 followed by 6 rounds of chemo every 3 weeks, Herceptin (to treat the HER2+ tumour) every 3 weeks for 12 months and radiotherapy for 5 weeks. I finished active treatment in July 2013 and am now having Tamoxifen (daily tablet) to suppress my hormones for the next few years. All of these treatments have their own challenges but you can get through them, especially if you tell your oncologist and team about any issues you might have as they can usually come up with something to help.

Like Lyn said, the My Journey Kit is really useful just to give you an idea of what to expect and helped me to work out my questions before I saw any of the specialists along the way. I also had a portacath put in rather than trying to find a vein every 3 week for 12 months - my veins would not have coped with that!- definitely worth talking to your oncologist about.

Best wishes, this is a difficult time for you but like Rowdy says, we are here for you. Jane xx