omg...... I have breast cancer

My partner signed me up to this forum so that I could talk to people that will understand what I am going through, somewhere I can talk to people that are going through the same pain and anguish that I am going through, somewhere I can put my thoughts so that I can understand things.   So here goes, Hi my name is Donna, I am a mother of three beautiful children, 19, 3 and 2.  My partner is a paramedic and I was a student paramedic and had just finished all my studies so that I could finally go back on road, as I had taken time off when I had my two babies.

Recently I was diagnosed with Inflammatory breast cancer, well only two weeks ago, everything is happening so quickly with all the testing and diagnosis and first round of Chemo,  I feel that my head is still spinning and I haven't had much time to really process what is happening. 

Just over two months ago I went to my doctor with a lump in my breast, that was causing me some pain.  She didn't really look at it, but got me to get a FNA biopsy ordered, (as 10 months previously I had a lump in same breast which turned out to be benign, no further investigation was required).  We lived in a small country town and closest place to get this done was over 400km away, so getting this organised was a little hard.   We were in the process of moving back to Brisbane, as my 3 year old boy had only just been diagnosed with being autistic and we wanted to move closer to better help for him and to get support from family.  So we waited till we finished moving, by the time we had this done was about three weeks later, my boob had just about tripled in size, I had extreme pain, bruising, heat, discharge from my nipple and deformity to my breast.  Whilst doing this first FNA biopsy they needed to remove 80mls of fluid so that they could get the biopsy from the  lump in my breast.  After getting the results my new doctor in Brisbane, he referred me to a specialist, all my results on the documents he handed us said was fluid was atypical and cells from lump were Suspicious for carcinoma, so we were hopeful that it was not too serious.  I saw my specialist four days later, after he looked at the results from FNA and blood works, he wanted to look at my breast, within minutes of viewing  he organised me to get CT scan, mammogram, bone scan, ultra sound and core biopsy (where an additional 80mls of fluid was removed).  Whilst getting my mammogram done, my specialist came and saw me and advised me that he had organised a MRI.  Everything was happening so quickly, I started to get scared and started to think that there was way more to this than I had and my partner had thought and the tears started flowing.  (being paramedics we had researched so much and looked at many different articles and maybe we overlooked things).  After having my MRI done my specialist had rang me again to inform me that that I had inflammatory breast cancer (this was the first time that any of the doctors had told me that I had cancer) and that he had me booked into see an oncologist, so that we could get chemotherapy started ASAP.  Chemo was organised for the following Tuesday and am now having chemo every two weeks for four months, then the specialist will see if it small enough to remove, especially from my lymph node and then we will decide if we removed both boobs or just the cancer. 

That is when it hit me, shit this is real, I have cancer, not just any cancer I had Inflammatory Breast Cancer, a rare and aggressive breast cancer, which had gone into a lymph node under my armpit and which was just starting to move into my chest wall.  My world just shattered around me.... holy fuck I must be dreaming, how dare this happen to me, how am I supposed to return to my job that I have waited so long to do,  how is my little man going to be able to cope with his mummy being sick, how is my partner going to cope.. I currently have a hole in my breast where the skin has broken from the tightening of the skin and is now leaking fluid, the skin is just peeling away and my oncologist has advised me that this hole will increase, that I should not get to alarmed if that was to happen and that the breast nurses will be able to assist with dressing that and show me what needs to be done,......is just disgusting!!  My partner cleans and dresses this for me every couple of days, sometimes every day!  He is a gem and I don't think he will ever realise how awesome he is....I just think this is just so unfair and I am very angry!

It was so very hard to tell my parents and my brothers and especially my 19 year old daughter and my best friend... so many tears and some laughing was involved but I think it will get easier for all of us to actually sit and talk about it more.

I had beautiful think long hair, which of course I would not be able to keep, so my daughter flew down from Rockhampton and we shaved our hair together, she wanted to do it so that she could show her support to me and so marked it as a day that I took a little bit of control!  We took family pictures and recorded the event so that we could look back and see how we took control and how brave we were.  This was a day when we all cried and laughed, it was awesome!!  A day that I will never forget, a day to remember as a good day!

I go back to get my second round of Chemo this Friday, I am some what scared and a little apprehensive  but one thing is I have never felt so many hands of support than what I have had the last two weeks, from the fantastic people I used to work with and that my partner works with.... Family that I did not have much contact with have also been showing me that they are here for me....  It has been great, makes me a little sad that it has taken something like this to bring us all together!   I just hope one day I can turn to them  and tell them how truly grateful I am..... I will never forget them!



Thank you for allowing me to write my thoughts and ramble on a little...  IT does actually help