History repeating itself?

Hi. My mum was diagnosed with advanced BC aged 46, no symptoms, found at a well woman clinic.  She had a full mastectomy and chemo. I have always been breast aware, and even asked once I hit 40 for a mammogram but was refused, told I'm not high risk and I'll get one at 50. I'm now 44, a mum to 2 young boys, and this morning whilst lying on my side in bed found what I thought was a teeny lump. Thought I was being silly as couldn't "find it" again.  Anyway. ...step out of shower and catch reflection in mirror, & there roughly where I felt lump was a puckering. Asked my husband to look at both sides to see if I was imagining it and he confirmed it was just on one side. Now sat drinking beer and eating my kids eggs wishing the next 2days away until I can get to the docs. Can I demand a referral or fo I just go on what they say? Thx for reading x

  • Frankly you'll get a referral

    I was looking at some research about GPs refering breast cancer cases and the conculsion was that really they referred anything they weren't 100% sure about and that an awful lot of 'false alarms' were refered that could have been dealt with at the surgery - On one hand its better safe than sorry but on the other that increases waiting times. 

    Now do you have any other relatives who have had breast cancer or ovarian cancer and do you have any jewish ancestry? if so you might want to consider asking for a BRCA gene test. Your mother was quite young but with a single relative I think it's below 40 they sit up and take notice but if you have other relatives with OC or BC the odds start to add up.

    My wife was BRCA1 and the familly history was particularly bad with BC and OC but other cancers too in the male side.

    If you don't have those factors then it's probably not something to worry about but if you do talk to your GP at the time - definitely talk about the familly history

    In any case you will still have a further wait the fast track is within 2 weeks 95% are seen in that time so you'll need a few more of those beers.

    Best of luck I hope it's a false alarm but I think you'll have a nervous couple of weeks I'm afraid