Hi Jolamine,

Sorry, not logged in for a while.  Surgery results were good but the histology result on the 2nd lump not so as it was HER2+ and brought up the option of chemo in order to have the Herceptin treatment whereas it wouldn't otherwise have been suggested.  Looking at all the side-effects I've declined those and the Tamoxifen ( at least for now). 

So I am now just looking at radiotherapy which will start in a week - I've had the planning appointment already and that was ok - practicing holding my breath to help avoid my heart!

Sarise x

Hi Sarise,

I am glad to hear that your surgery results were good, although it's not such good news about your histology results.

Does your oncologist feel that radiotherapy might be enough to control growth in the meantime. I am the opposite from you. I went with Tamoxifen the first time around, then with Letrozolefor  the following bout. I stopped taking these in 2017 after 6 years. I refused chemo and radiotherapy.

So far, I'm still here 9 years after diagnosis, although I go into hospital on 6th March to get a melanoma on my face removed. I've been told that I'll need a skin graft after the operation, as the lesion is just under my eye.

I hope that your results are not too scary next week. Two weeks seems like a long time to wait. I shall be thinking of you as you start your radiotherapy. Don't forget to let us know how you get on.

Kind regards,

Jolamine xx

Hi Jolamine,

'Control growth'?  I'm hoping there is nothing still growing ...  I'm not sure anyone has really explained to me how much worse a HER2+ve tumour is than just ER+ve.  They just said it would likely have grown faster than the larger one which was only ER+ve.

I also had a melanoma quite a few years ago - that was on my arm and I only knew it was one once it had been cut out.  They did the wide excision afterwards which did leave a much bigger scar than I was expecting - 3 inches for what had only been a small mole.  It's good then that they'll do the skin graft rather than leave a scar on your face.  I hope it all goes well.

Sarise x.