Hello! This is a realllllly long post, where I just wanted to rant and get my story out, it might be triggering for some. I'm just getting this all out for me really, because I've held it in so long, so please dont feel the need to read or comment!

I've not been on a forum before, avoided them like the plague when my diagnosis was new, but its all calmed down now and I'm ready so here we are!

So! I was diagnosed with invasive mucinous carcinoma of the right breast in October 2018, age 27.

I felt a pain in my boob in August some time, so much that I sort of went Ouch and felt where the pain was and felt a lump there. Luckily I had kind of smaller boobs so it was easily felt! Work was busy and I kept putting off a GP appointment, thinking it will be nothing, I'm too young for anything that dramatic to happen to me. And no one in my family has really had cancer.

I went to my GP finally in early October, who tried to turn me away after telling me it was a cyst. I didn't really tell anyone I was going. I work in medicine so informed him that I was pretty sure it wasn't a cyst, and as soon as I mentioned my job title he referred me through to breast care. So many times in my journey I've wondered where I would be if I didn't already work in this field. Anyway!

An appointment came through at the hospital I work in. I popped over for my appointment during my working day. The surgeon felt the lump, told me they also thought it was benign, a fibroma, but to go for an ultrasound scan just in case.

I went to the ultrasound scan after work, they said it looks okay.... but seeing as you're over 25 lets do a core biopsy just in case. I was so nervous! The team were so kind. I was so touched that they had taken such good care of me and could see how nervous I was, that I went back the next day with a box of chocolates for them. I remember after all this, thinking of all the staff I've met on my journey since and feeling a bit ridiculous. Little did I know what was coming!

I had an appointment to go for the result a couple of weeks later. I didnt think it would be serious, as it had taken the full two weeks to come back. I had been told if it was bad news that usually things happen pretty quickly. I went to my appointment alone again, at the end of my working day. I was so nervous and all of my colleagues and friends at work who knew insisted i'd be fine.

I sat in this tiny room waiting for the surgeon, thinking, this isnt the sort of room that they tell people they have cancer in. There was just an exam couch, a desk, a chair, a clock. I expected sofas, a box of tissues, a fake plant, for the bad news room. I awkwardly sat on the exam couch, the surgeon came in, and also a breast care nurse. They sat in these two plastic chairs opposite me, and I felt so ridiculous sat higher up than them on this bed. The surgeon asked if I had anyone with me today, I said no. She said do your family live far? I said about an hour away. It really hadn't clicked with me at this point.

Then she started going through everything. "You went to your GP with a lump that you had felt, who referred you to me. I said it felt like a fibroma, you then had an ultrasound. The radiologist agreed that it looked like a fibroma but they did a biopsy anyway. We did not get the news that we hoped for, I'm sorry". I was literally incredulous. I couldn't believe it at all. Were they saying I have cancer? I just could not get my head around it. This was not real! I felt sick. She started talking to me about my fertility, surgery, treatments, I dont remember a word of it. I was given some sort of handbook to cancer, which had my diagnosis written in it. They rushed me round to do a mammogram. The breast care nurse was basically my only support. She was so amazing. I just kept saying "its okay, im okay. im fine, im ok". I felt like they were watching me, waiting for me to completely lose it. They were explaining to me that the type of cancer I had was less than 1% of breast cancers. And that when they find this cancer, its usually in women who are 80+ years old. They were shocked, I could see it in their faces, that that was the result. I felt bad for the surgeon, because I could see that she was surprised. 

I had surgery, I had radiotherapy. I had my cancer sent off to America for testing to see if chemo would be a good idea for me or not. It was decided, albeit a little borderline for my taste, that it would not be worth me having chemo, for the cost it would have on my body.

The hardest parts of cancer were:

telling my parents. I just phoned them in the car in the work car park after it all. I wish I had done it another way, but my head had completely fallen off and they were wondering why they hadnt heard from me for over an hour after my appointment. Living an hour away, I couldnt get them to come to me without telling them why. And they felt so guilty for not being there with me for that experience.

Waking up after the surgery wondering what I was going to look like. Seemed so shallow to be worrying about it, but I was single and scared that I'd have to explain my body to someone.

The first zoladex injection, I'd seen the size of the needle and I used to have a needle phobia. At least I've gotten over that now.

Waiting to hear if i'd need chemo.

lying on the radiotherapy machine for the first time, shaking, trying not to breathe too much incase it zapped the wrong part of me. 

the last radiotherapy treatment, knowing that the little routine I had got into was over and that I would be out in the real world again, away from the healthcare professionals, away from the thing that zaps the bad stuff away, potentially where the cancer could come back

Working every day in the hospital where I was diagnosed and treated. Seeing the same departments, the same staff. Treating breast cancer patients and listening to their stories but having to hide my own. Knowing that I am seeing those patients because they are ill again, and wondering if I too will get ill again. Working with pregnant patients and wondering if I will be able to have a baby after all of this. Delivering bad news to patients, wondering whether they too are wondering why there are no fake plants around. Wondering if they will remember the way I have changed their life that day, the way I remember my life being changed. Wondering if, if I can get pregnant, whether the hormones that come with pregnancy will cause me to develop cancer again.

I feel like my worries are that I was young to be diagnosed, that I have a lot of potential years left in which to be healthy, worried thats a lot of time for this sort of thing to happen again. Feeling like I can't go through that again. I don't want to be scared for my life again. Wondering if I will ever feel safe or secure in my body again. That was the thing about being told how 'unlikely' my cancer was - when anyone says well its only 1% of people who have this or that, I'm thinking I was that 1%. The worst is always going to happen. 

Mentally I wasn't great before the cancer, did some things that I thought maybe I've brought this on myself, maybe its karma. I feel bitter that when I was depressed before the cancer, no one was there for me. When I had cancer, people were offering to do my shopping, take me places, stay with them. Everyone wanted to help. As soon as the cancer was dealt with and my mood dropped again, and I'm sure my fellow survivors will know, dealing with the side effects of the treatment is actual Hell, there is not a person in sight again. I feel like post-breast cancer is like another invisible illness. I'm 29, even though my colleagues know im still having treatment, they dont want to see the effects of that on me. They brush off my tiredness, confusion, hot flushes, mood swings, depression. I feel like im moaning all the time. I feel like im not allowed to be ill. I feel ungrateful for even talking about it, because it could have been so much worse. I feel like the minute that tumour left my body, everyone except me breathed a sigh of relief because the cancer had gone. But for me its just the start!

Generally I feel so friggin fed up with the whole thing! My story has descended into a rant now, sorry!

I long for the day before diagnosis again, when I had no clue and my eyes were shut! I feel irrevocably changed, in a club I dont want to be in and no matter how many positive slogans I read or pep talks I get off my dad, Im completely fed up. I have this mood probably once a week where Im just angry that this has even happened, and then il carry on as usual.

Maybe saying all this on here won't help me, maybe it will. Kind of scary posting about it. If you made it this far thanks for reading. Sorry if I seem ungrateful at all in any of it, I can assure you im so glad to be here and grateful for the hard working nhs staff that have helped me when so many others dont have that chance.