Hello, 

Not sure if you can help at all. So I finished my chemotherapy on 30th August after 6 rounds and had my usual telephone call with my oncologist to check in after and see how it went. On this phone call she told me there is a long waiting list for radiotherapy, of 6 months for the planning appt and then another month for the actual radiotherapy to start. 

I was really shocked as at our very first meeting in April before I started any chemo, I went with my husband and she mentioned the waiting list then but said it wouldn't apply to me if I was having the 6 months of chemo, I would go straight for radiotherapy afterwards as soon as I was well enough usually a 4-6 week wait. So my husband and I were (now we know) wrongly under the impression that the referral for radiotherapy would happen then to make sure I was in the system for when I fished the 6 rounds of chemo. This I have been told now is wrong and the referral isn't made until you finish chemo and they are now apologising if I feel misled. 

I feel hugely misled and obviously really concerned as I was told the radiotherapy and the endocrine treatment were the most important for me as I was borderline for chemo but chose to have it as I am young (39) so my risk of reoccurance increases over my life span. 

I went to pals with this but they haven't really responded to any of my concerns just kind of said sorry you feel misled but this is the process and this is the wait list. 

I was told other local hospitals are no longer accepting referrals but not offered another option. 

If the wait is 7 months like they said I will be 14 months post diagnosis and 12 months post op (mastectomy and lymph node clearance) before I receive radiotherapy which just seems absolutely diabolical to me.

I'm obviously really concerned that this will increase the risk of it coming back but when I challenged this with my consultant she just said well you can start the tamoxifen in the meantime....

I know tamoxifen and radiotherapy do completely different jobs so this just seems like a token gesture to try and make me feel better. 

This is really affecting me psychologically as I had the end in sight and now I don't. Being told by my oncologist to just go back to normal in the meantime isn't really an option right now as I feel so anxious. 

Thank you.