Hi there Danbo,

Sorry I've been absent from here a fair bit of late due to being back at work after best part of a year, having surgery, and setting up a cancer project in Jersey.

Really sorry to hear your diagnosis and what you're going through. Thanks to [@Moderator Jenn]‍ for tagging me.

Hopefully you've already discovered that this is a great place for support.

I'm also metastatic. I was diagnosed at stage 3c initially (aged 41, but had probably already had it for best part of a decade) but within 8 months I was stage 4. My colleague has it in his family and a number of the males in his family have had breast cancer but I don't know him that well yet so haven't heard much about what they've been through.

I really hope you feel completely at home talking to us women, there are more of us after all. But equally i understand you may be keen to talk to men with it. I love talking to people with lots of different cancers but definitely had a need to talk to some other younger women with BC because it does affect you differently at different ages.

Totally get the relief in being taken seriously but also the fear as to what now?

It's a funny thing, your life changes and doesn't change. It changes in the most major of ways and yet once everything settles down and your treatment is underway you find yourself having to adjust back to 'normal' life (just a slightly different normal life to before).

Ultimately what's important is your relationships, especially your kids, and you still have that and it's importance doesn't diminish, and their need of you doesn't diminish.

Anyway, I'll leave you for now as I'm rambling (have a cold so not totally with it!) but just to say welcome to the forum and if I can do anything to help please shout.

LJx