Love and support of family, friends and the GP!

I had a phone call from my GP when he heard that I had been diagnosed with breast cancer, I was very surprised as our GP is not normally one to phone his patients up so I was grateful that he had taken the trouble. He asked me to attend the surgery so he could go over my treatments with me and answer any questions I might have. He told me, in no uncertain terms, that I needed to have the operation, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and any other treatments offered to me. He said that without those treatments I simply would not make it. It certainly brings things home to you when your family doctor tells you something like that! He discussed my treatments with me, answered a few questions I wanted the answers to, and told me that he wanted to see me every 3 months to make sure I was okay, sooner if I felt the need to see him for anything at all, and said he would help to get me through it. Quite frankly he was wonderful, and I never thought I would say that about my GP! I knew he was a good doctor, he picked up on a medical problem that my Dad had, sent him straight to hospital and saved his life, the consultant was very impressed that a GP had picked up on such a complex medical problem so I knew that he knows his stuff. When I had an infection on the burnt skin underneath my breast, caused by the radiotherapy, he noticed I looked unwell on a visit to his surgery and sent me to hospital straight away for treatment. I still see him every 6 months, he does full blood tests and a very good medical examination each time, and makes sure I am keeping well. I see my consultant oncologist annually, and my surgeon annually, so with my seeing my GP so regularly I see somebody medical every 3 months so if I have any worries at all I have someone to tell.
When my chemo finished I did not know at the time that I was HER2 positive, they did not find that out until a few weeks later (this was in the days when women were fighting for the right to have the drugs and I did not know whether I would be able to have them or not) and I felt quite frightened knowing I would not be going to the hospital every couple of weeks for my chemotherapy. I felt stupid as I was looking forward to chemo finishing, but when I mentioned that I was worried to my chemo nurse she said it is a normal reaction and most people who have been going through cancer treatments feel the same way. You want the chemo to finish but you worry that you will not have the same support from the nurses and doctors at the hospital that you did before. After all if you go to the hospital every 2 weeks and you have some ailment you wish to discuss you can do so, but you are suddenly on your own and it seems scary to have nobody to turn to. I was reassured by the nurse when she said everyone feels that way, and she said I would have the phone number for the ward, and the consultants, so that if I every had a problem all I had to do was call them and they would help me to sort it out. I felt a little better when she told me this, and now to this day those numbers are held on to the side of my freezer with  fridge magnets! I have had cause to call my consultants too and what the nurse told me was true, I had a lump in my neck you see which I was scared about, a few years ago now, so I called the consultant and had an appointment to see him a couple of weeks later! The lump was removed and it was a benign reactive lymph node, nothing to worry about! Sigh of relief!
My GP told me that every time I had a sniffle, headache, sore joint I would go into panic mode for a bit and think `has the cancer returned`? He told me it was normal to feel that way, but that you have to realise that a headache is probably just a headache, not a brain tumour. A stomach pain is just stomach ache and not anything more sinister. A cough and cold is just a cough and cold, not lung cancer. I laughed when he said this to me, convinced that I would not be that way but he said "you mark my words, lots of cancer patients feel that way". You know what? He was right! At first if I had a headache, the first thing that came into my head was "Oh God, do I have a brain tumour?" Then I thought of what the doctor had said to me, gave myself a good talking to, and realised the doctor was right! Now 8 years later I can rationalize and realise that not every ache, pain or niggle is the return of the dreaded big c. I have a cold at the moment, and thats all it is, a cold!!
Oh and one last thing, this is another thing my GP told me. Cancer is not catching! Well ofcourse it isn`t, thats just stupid but he told me the tale of an old gent that developed cancer who went into his surgery to speak to him very upset. He was complaining about one of his oldest friends who, on learning that he had cancer would not visit him any longer. Ofcourse the old chap who was ill was very upset by his friends rejection and could not understand his attitude. Hopefully his friend soon realized he could not catch it, or somebody put him straight, after all its hard enough having cancer, without friends keeping away because they think they will catch it. I have had friends who have stayed out of my way and I found out later that they were worried about what to say to me! This was after I forced the issue by knocking on the door! As I told her I didn`t want to feel like a victim, I just happened to have cancer but I was the same person! All was well.  So if anybody does avoid you, don`t take it to heart, they can`t cope and don`t know what to say to you. Act normally around them, tell them you want to be treated the same way as before your diagnosis and don`t want to feel like a victim, and they will soon come round. If they don`t, well they are no friend really are they? You certainly find out who your friends are, I know I did. I was, and still am, very grateful for them all. I shall take this opportunity to say thanks for the support. x

Beating cancer.

In February 2013 it is 8 years since I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I have always been afraid of operations, anaesthetics and going into hospital, but I just wanted the cancer out of my body, I wanted it gone.  Hubby was a bit worried at first that I would not go through with the operation, the chemotherapy, radiotherapy and everything that goes along with it. I have always been frightened of cancer, even the word filled me with dread, and I had always said I would not have chemotherapy, I would not have an operation.  When it actually happened to me I realised that my worst fear had been realised, I had cancer, and I did not feel any different to how I felt before! I was scared yes, I wondered what was going to happen yes, but I was more frightened of worrying my family, I did not want my elderly mom worrying herself about me. I did not want my husband worrying about me, and I certainly did not want to worry my kids. We told nobody until I got a definate diagnosis, there was no point in making anybody worried about something which may or may not happen, so we kept it quiet but once the diagnosis was confirmed I had no choice but to tell them. When my hair started to fall out they would notice, when I was feeling ill from effects of chemotherapy they would notice, when I was in hospital having the operation to remove the alien from my body they would definately notice. Telling my loved ones was awful, terrible. I could barely get the words out when I had to tell my husband I had cancer, my voice broke when I told mom, she was so quiet, too quiet. My son did not want to believe it, my daughter cried and cried, shook and shook. I never wanted to hurt them that much, I knew I had to fight.

I was told my cancer was fast growing and aggressive, if it had not been discovered by that routine mammogram my story might have been very different. I had an operation to have it cut out of me, I had 8 months of chemotherapy, I had radiotherapy, I had herceptin because it turned out to be HER2 positive, I took tamoxifen and even now today I still have to take hormones because the cancer was fuelled by oestrogen so I have been told my best chance of it not returning is to take the hormone tablets. I have to visit the oncologist and surgeon for 10 years because the diagnosis was so bad, so you see I could so easily not be here, but the thing is I am. I never thought about dying, I always thought I would live, my family and friends kept me going, they helped me through, as did the nurses and doctors, my GP everybody has been amazing. Thanks to you all, without you where would I be?

So if you have just received a diagnosis of breast cancer, even if it is grade 3, stage 3, fast growing and aggressive, HER2 positive, just like mine was you can do it, you can be here 8 years later, just like me. I won`t lie, chemotherapy is not very nice, I would not choose to have needles stuck in my hand but if thats what it takes, do it. I was very sick through chemotherapy but the oncologist increased my anti sickness medication so that helped. I passed out a couple of times, I felt very tired, the skin underneath my breast was burnt by the radiotherapy meaning I had to have dressings put on for some time, but its ok now and I got through it. There are lots of side effects, but if those side effects say goodbye to the cancer, if those side effects help you to live to be with your family and friends, its only for a short while. No the treatments are no nice, but you can do it. I did. So you can do it too. Believe me I know, I got through it, even though I never thought I would, I have always been afraid of cancer, even the word. I am beating cancer, its not beating me, don`t let cancer beat you either. I am still here 8 years after cancer diagnosis, you can still be here in 8 years time too. Good luck. xxx