Oncologist

Well it turns out that my oncologist has recommended that I have chemo followed by tamoxifen rather than the other treatments that were originally put to me by my surgeon....I guess I shouldn't have jumped the gun and based my thoughts on what he said!

The oncologist was lovely and explained everything really well.  I will need 4 cycles of chemotherapy over a 12 week period, followed by the Tamoxifen.

The thing that really surprised me though was the risk that remains of getting secondaries after the treatment - she said that if I had no further treatment my risk of having secondaries is about 24% and after treatment would be around 11%!  I thought that it would be a lot lower than that.....after all, that's still more than 1 in 10 that will get secondaries!  My margins and lymph nodes were clear and it was only a stage 2 cancer so I thought I would be fairly safe anyway?!!?!  Oh well, at least 11% is lower than 24%!

I am a bit worried about losing my hair - it seems so silly but I almost feel more scared about losing my hair than I did about losing my breast!  I guess it's because I could hide a lost breast but it is more difficult to hide that you have lost your hair!  I know it is a small price to pay for the benefit you get and I keep telling myself not to be so silly about it! LOL

I am going on a girls only holiday away (with 5 girlfriends) to Langkawi in October and will begin my chemo when we get back.  It will be nice to have a break and relax before the worry of putting my body through chemo :)  I can't wait!

Incidentally I went for an MRI scan today on my liver because they found a shadow on it in the CT scan - well that was a disaster!  Firstly they had a little trouble finding a vein and then when they had me all hooked up and in the machine they got a big warning beep and had to get me out really quickly because I've got a tissue expander in my breast at the moment from the reconstruction and it has a magnet in it that they use to work out where the valve is to fill it up.  Well the MRI machine didn't like that at all!  They were all worried about the tissue expander and whether it had moved at all inside me but I don't think it has....I had to have an ultrasound on my liver instead and then they couldn't really see the shadowy bit!  The people who did the CT scan think it is benign though so I am going to wait until I get the tissue expander changed for the permanent prosthesis and then get an MRI done in about 6 months time - they don't think it is anything to worry about :) - what a morning though!! LOL

Anyway, have a great day everyone,

Louise :)