Hi I am Shann and newly diagnosed on the 6th September and waiting for results from a core biopsy.

@shann So glad you're doing much better ! Get it checked ! I got myself in a tizz in november thinking I had a recurrence , but it was scar tissue ,at least a mammogram & ultrasound put my mind at ease . Oncologist appt yesterday ,she was very happy & found nothing out of the ordinary thank heavens xx

Thank you so much ladies for all of your advise and information it is really helpful reading all the different things people have gone through and going through and decisions they have made. All the more information I can take with me to the surgeon next week.

Hi @shann. I am almost three months in to this horror, and the pressure to be the 'good patient' is palpable.My sister died from this bloody disease 20 months ago and I'm raising her two kids along with my two. My 85yo father-in-law moved in with us after his daughter died from a brain tumour in 2015. My husband works 60 hour weeks, 2 - 4 days a week of which is interstate. I have tremendous help and support from friends but the pressure on me to maintain a positive face to everyone is intense and immense. I cry when I'm on my own all the time.I try not to lay my sadness on my clinicians but it's hard and I don't always succeed. I feel like i have had all my choices taken away from me, and feel dismantled inside by the never ending blows. I DREAD the 'new normal' and am quailing at the mountain in front of me.It turns out the only place I can really let loose with my tears is at chemotherapy. One hour of sobbing the first dose, twenty minutes the second. The lovely NUM at the first dose said I was in a safe place and could cry all day if I needed to.I'm seeing a psychologist (community funded and so costs very little) and she is helping I think. She did the depression, anxiety and stress test on me. It said I was severely depressed, moderately anxious and severely stressed. No shit Sherlock... Currently mulling over the concept of anti-depressants.A very good friend conducted the study that proved that being positive has zero effect on cancer outcomes.Get help for the negativity if want/can. But don't let anyone tell you that what you are feeling is wrong or bad. Your feelings are YOUR feelings, no one else's and are in no way wrong. I am no expert but my psych tells me that one in three women with breast cancer get depressed, and that everything I am feeling is bog standard normal. Yes, in addition to everything else I am a cliché!Hang in there.Chemo 3 tomorrow. Will there be tears?! Probably...

its taken at while for me to feel ok in myself..... I used to wake after I have finished treatments in tears having woken up my kids(teens) with crying in my sleep I then began seeing a psychologist who said I had PTSD from my treatments. Now if I get very tired (note 5yrs later) I still will be crying in my sleep with no nightmares just crying... I accept these days that means I am struggling with processing this emotionally and that is a massive thing for us to go through. Hugs Soldiercrab

The pressure to feel positive and move forward is very real. I finished chemo nearly three weeks ago and start radiation in a week. Feel very lost in the pressure to feel 'positive and grateful'. Some days I am good, some days I am not so good and some days I am both good and bad! I swing through panic, sweats, sadness and a weird sort of numbness. It is overwhelming to process. I loved your comments SoldierCrab and it is comforting that you still have moments of crying. I feel I cry 'too much' but there is actually no rules. It is very much like processing through PTSD.

Newly Diagnosed | BCNA Online Network

Sister
Member
7 years ago
I'm no expert and not really sure where you mean but I think you should get it checked out regardless as otherwise you are going to be wondering and worrying. As we all know, it's better to be sure.
shann
Member
7 years ago
Hey all
Just have a question for you, I was lying in bed last night and was just seeing how far I could stretch without the scar pulling. Well when doing this I found a lump in left side (not my cancer side) and was wondering if you think it would be scar tissue from all my surgeries last year. Let me know what you think.
Thanks xx
shann
Member
7 years ago
Hi yes I am still here. I would like to thank everyone on here for all the information and positive comments over my last year on here. I was up and very down at times. Just letting you all know that I have all scared but with no thanks to the local hospital but all to my gp's nurse for her wonderful treatment. I am now in the throws of trying to be put on another doc's team at the hospital, I am sure I have the right to do this as I am not happy with mine. We will see what happens. Anyway without this network being I know I would have been very lost as I was not leaving the house and not know but falling into a deep depression which I have now pulled myself out of. Back into the land of the living and enjoying as much as I can with a few things I can't do. Unable to reach my arms above my head as I have scared terribly since I was butchered so much but hey they are scars and they will now tie into the rest of the road map from my neck down to my hips ..... he he he.
Anyway thanks everyone again
Lots of love and best wishes for a great 2019. xx
kmakm
Member
7 years ago
@Shann No, it wasn't me. I presume you mean Dr Fiona Wood. Amazing woman.

If this proves beneficial they'll be making the product synthetically. No need to BYO!!
arpie
Member
7 years ago
I didn't have ANY kids & look at me!! LOL I married one! ;)
Annie_C
Member
7 years ago
@shann

Oops!
Damn predictive text, fat fingers and a smart phone!

The doctor's name was supposed to come to you.

@arpie

Yes Fiona Wood has 6 kids. Don't know how she manages all that she does. I barely managed working with 2, six years apart!

My husband, Ian, in a past life was a medical photographer at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. Fiona Wood would have Ian take photos of whatever project she was working on. Ian enjoyed working with her.
arpie
Member
7 years ago
She is an AMAZING woman! I think she was Australian of the Year after that! AND she has about 6 kids!!

Good luck with the search - I hope you can get some of the second skin @shann Maybe suggest to her that you can be her 'project' in a new area of wound management?
Annie_C
Member
7 years ago
@"sharon lee"

The doctor who invented a second skin is Fiona Woods. She used it extensively after the Bali bombing.

She was at the Royal Perth Hospital Burns Unit.

Annie
shann
Member
7 years ago
Hi kmakm
Thank you for that. I am assuming that you use your own and if that is the case well I am out of luck and not sure I would ike to use someone elses. I had a hystorectomy when I was 39 and they only left my ovaries. But very interesting read.
I have have often thought about the second skin but the docs here told me it wouldn't help me as it was for burns and yet 2 sentences ago they were just telling me that this looks like a burn. So I throw my arms up in the air. Trying to get hold of the Dr that invented the second skin at present. Not sure if it is available over here. I am seeing a new GP and seems nice but the dressing she put on cost $22 so will be taking my own on friday. Not sure what she can do really.
Did you give me the name of the Dr in Perth about the second skin, thank if you did.
Shann xx
kmakm
Member
7 years ago
@arpie Fascinating.