It's 4am, I'm wide awake so I thought I'd introduce myself.

My name is Anne, I'm just 61 and In April of this year I found a small lump in my left breast.

Following a telephone consultation with my GP, it was agreed that they would bypass the initial face-to-face appointment and refer me straight to my local breast care hospital. I waited two weeks for my initial appointment where I had a mammogram. At the same appointment I had biopsy of the lump.

It was at that point that I realised I probably had breast cancer, it was a feeling I had which was very much compounded with the amount of care and treatment I received at that first appointment. 
 

And second much smaller lump was also picked up on the ultrasound whilst they were doing the biopsy.  That lump was so small that I had to have a needle biopsy in the mammogram machine as they needed to make sure my left breast was completely imobile.

I had to wait two weeks for the biopsy results and my follow up appointment.  I had already been told by the consultant who took the biopsies that he was 90% convinced it was cancer even before the biopsy results came back. He advised me that if both lumps were tumours I would have to have I mastectomy, but if only one lump was cancer I would just have surgery to remove the lump and some of the sentinel lymph-nodes. 
 

Thankfully the latter result came back.  I was booked in for surgery three weeks later.  
 

So surgery was done in May, The surgeon thankfully managed to remove the lump with clear margins, two weeks after surgery I saw the consultant and we discussed follow-up treatment as a preventative.  To give me the best chance of the cancer not re-occurring within the next 10 years. Obviously there is never any guarantee but I did opt for Treatment as I have beautiful grandchildren and I need to give myself the best chance of seeing them grow up.

So my treatment plan, 4 EC chemo sessions, every third week followed by five days of radiotherapy.  With various checkups and injections over the next five years.

I'm not gonna lie chemo has been tough and I've spent a lot of time in the acute oncology department for various different emergency situations, but I count myself very lucky, my diagnosis and treatment has been very very quick. I have amazing support from my family, my work have been absolutely fantastic and have supported me through everything and finally I have the most amazing friends who have offered support in person or online.  To top it all the care and compassion I have received from every member of the medical profession, from the top man right down to the volunteer who brings coffee/tea and sandwiches to those patients on the chemo suites receiving treatment has been exemplary - they deserve their weights in gold, each and every one. 

personal stuff, as I said at the beginning I'm 61, I have a twin sister and a slightly younger brother, I have three children, twin girls of 32 and my son, who is a cancer survivor having had childhood cancer 15yrs ago, One of my girls is married with my two beautiful granddaughters and the other is very career minded.  All my family, apart from my son, live within 15 minutes Drive, some as close is two minutes walk away.  My son lives in Berlin with his girlfriend and obviously due to the current world situation it's been difficult to physically see him, thankfully we have FaceTime and WhatsApp.

So that's me in a nutshell x