It is important to touch look check to ascertain if there are any abnormalities with your breasts and catch cancer early.
You can get free publications about breast cancer from breakthrough breast cancer, you can take some leaflets for distribution to your workplace, doctors surgery, dentist, local playgroup, community centre .........................
the list goes on.
You can get free posters, and credit card size with information, and leaflets etc from the breakthrough breast cancer website, it takes a few minutes to go on to the website and order what you need.
They are free so you have no excuse, order some today and put a poster up at work, leave some leaflets out on a convenient table, help everyone to get some TLC.
This is the website you need, and thankyou from a 7 year survivor, it could save your life or the life or a friend or colleague. Don`t forget, men get breast cancer too.
www.breakthrough.org.uk/publications
Friday, 21 September 2012
Monday, 17 September 2012
Taking hormones after breast cancer can hurt the joints.
Following my operation, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and herceptin I was told to take Tamoxifen tablets which I did for 5 years. My oncologist then changed my medication to another hormone, saying it would give me the best chance of avoiding a return of cancer and I started to take letrozole. The problem with taking this drug is that it can make any arthritis and joint problems worse, which I soon found out, but I decided to try and persevere with it as I wanted the best chance I could of keeping the cancer at bay. I am now, unfortunately, at the point where walking is very painful and I cannot walk very far at all,but then again I could not walk all that far previously so would this have happened naturally, or is the increase in pain and the subsequent decrease in mobility due to the medication alone, or to the worsening arthritis, or both? I am going to my GP today to ask some questions and to request a referal to a rheumatologist for a second opinion as to be quite honest I do not want to stop taking the drug only to find my pain and mobility stay the same, and the worse happens which would be the return of the cancer. I do not know if the pain and loss of mobility is solely due to the medication or whether it is partly due to the worsening of my arthritis and degenerative disease, or whether it is actually making the arthritis and degenerative disease worse! I am very reluctant to stop taking the medication, even though I now have so much more pain, because I am quite frankly scared that if I stop taking it the cancer will return and that is what I am the most afraid of, it terrifies me. I am going to have to make some difficult decisions, or perhaps I will just stay as I am.
Friday, 14 September 2012
Breast cancer, fight it, I am still here.
October is breast cancer awareness month, not that you should be unaware any of the other months, you should check regularly for lumps, bumps, dimples and other irregularities and attend mammograms too. My breast cancer was discovered because I went along, reluctantly I must admit,(my husband insisted, having found the letter in the waste paper basket) for my first routine mammogram when I was 49, 6 months before I turned 50 years old, not expecting anything to be found. I was so certain that there would be no problem that we booked a holiday to Greece the same day! Within a week I had a hospital letter to attend, followed by a biopsy and a week after that first mammogram I heard the awful news that I had breast cancer. We were stunned, frightened, agonised, numb, terrified, every emotion you can think of. I wanted the alien immediately cut out of my body, I could not bear to think of the cancer inside me, eating me away. On my hospital visits I realised I had actually missed signs which I was totally unaware of, dimpled skin on the breast was a sign of cancer which I had never realised but now ofcourse I wish I had known. I am not even sure how long it was there before my diagnosis, but I think it was there for quite a while. Perhaps I could have prevented the tumour forming if I had gone to the doctors? I don`t know, I have been to scared and embarrassed to ask anybody, but now I wish I had known what it could mean. Any abnormalities that were not apparent before, inturned nipples, strange dimpling skin, feeling a lump is not the only sign.
I have had my story in newspapers and magazines before, trying to raise awareness, trying to encourage women, and men, to have tests, mammograms, watch out for the signs. When stories were requested again as to how cancer was discovered I sent my story to Breakthrough breast cancer, not because I am courting fame, want my name or photo in a magazine, nothing like that, my sole aim is to raise awareness and make even one woman think, help even one woman (hopefully many) seek help. We must not forget men, they can get breast cancer too. So I sent my story in, knowing that as October is breast cancer awareness month they would want all the stories made known, all the publicity they could. Magazines, newspapers I could cope with. I don`t mind writing my story out, discussing it with somebody, sending in my photo, writing a blog. If it will make someone aware, give them the courage to find help that is my aim. I was not prepared to be asked to appear on television. I had an email asking if I would speak on the Lorraine show! I was a bit shocked, no I was very shocked, and I really really wish I could have found the courage to do it. I know I should have, I do desperately want to get the message out there, to try and help. I`m sorry, I don`t have the confidence to speak on television, and to be honest my mobility is not great due to arthritis so a journey to and perhaps across London is not something I would relish, nor would I find it an easy thing to do. I feel awful about turning down the opportunity to speak but I am stressed just thinking about it! Maybe that seems silly to some people, hopefully a lot of people will understand, I just wish I could overcome my fears. I am still happy for my story to be told in newspapers, blogs, magazines, to get the message out there.
If you have found a lump, if you have found unusual dimpling on the skin of the breast or a change in your nipple, please please go and see your doctor, don`t be afraid, you can get through whatever will happen. I had an operation, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, herceptin, lost my hair, was terribly sick, very tired, had no energy but now, seven and a half years after my diagnosis I am still here, I am alive. I am a grandmother, I know who my friends are, I have a wonderful family. My cancer was grade 3, fast growing and aggressive. I was scared and sometimes I will not lie, I still am. I am still here, against all the odds I am still here.
A nice post script to my story, after being on the Anthony Nolan bone marrow register for many years, 5 years ago my husband was called upon to donate his bone marrow. He gave his donation and saved the life of a lady in the USA. We did not know where she was at the time, but after a certain time scale the recipient is allowed contact if they so wish and we have been in contact with the lady whose life he saved. She is just a little younger than us by 5 years or so, and like us has two grown up children a son and daughter. She has told us she would have died without the bone marrow donation and we are both very happy to know that she is alive and well because of it. So in effect he saved two lives, mine when he insisted I attend that first mammogram and Michelles in USA. He said it was his way of giving something back for all the help I had and for my life being saved.
I have had my story in newspapers and magazines before, trying to raise awareness, trying to encourage women, and men, to have tests, mammograms, watch out for the signs. When stories were requested again as to how cancer was discovered I sent my story to Breakthrough breast cancer, not because I am courting fame, want my name or photo in a magazine, nothing like that, my sole aim is to raise awareness and make even one woman think, help even one woman (hopefully many) seek help. We must not forget men, they can get breast cancer too. So I sent my story in, knowing that as October is breast cancer awareness month they would want all the stories made known, all the publicity they could. Magazines, newspapers I could cope with. I don`t mind writing my story out, discussing it with somebody, sending in my photo, writing a blog. If it will make someone aware, give them the courage to find help that is my aim. I was not prepared to be asked to appear on television. I had an email asking if I would speak on the Lorraine show! I was a bit shocked, no I was very shocked, and I really really wish I could have found the courage to do it. I know I should have, I do desperately want to get the message out there, to try and help. I`m sorry, I don`t have the confidence to speak on television, and to be honest my mobility is not great due to arthritis so a journey to and perhaps across London is not something I would relish, nor would I find it an easy thing to do. I feel awful about turning down the opportunity to speak but I am stressed just thinking about it! Maybe that seems silly to some people, hopefully a lot of people will understand, I just wish I could overcome my fears. I am still happy for my story to be told in newspapers, blogs, magazines, to get the message out there.
If you have found a lump, if you have found unusual dimpling on the skin of the breast or a change in your nipple, please please go and see your doctor, don`t be afraid, you can get through whatever will happen. I had an operation, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, herceptin, lost my hair, was terribly sick, very tired, had no energy but now, seven and a half years after my diagnosis I am still here, I am alive. I am a grandmother, I know who my friends are, I have a wonderful family. My cancer was grade 3, fast growing and aggressive. I was scared and sometimes I will not lie, I still am. I am still here, against all the odds I am still here.
A nice post script to my story, after being on the Anthony Nolan bone marrow register for many years, 5 years ago my husband was called upon to donate his bone marrow. He gave his donation and saved the life of a lady in the USA. We did not know where she was at the time, but after a certain time scale the recipient is allowed contact if they so wish and we have been in contact with the lady whose life he saved. She is just a little younger than us by 5 years or so, and like us has two grown up children a son and daughter. She has told us she would have died without the bone marrow donation and we are both very happy to know that she is alive and well because of it. So in effect he saved two lives, mine when he insisted I attend that first mammogram and Michelles in USA. He said it was his way of giving something back for all the help I had and for my life being saved.
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