Hi KittyCarmichael,

A very warm welcome to our forum. I am sorry to hear how worried you feel about. I have had 2 bouts of breast cancer and I never even noticed the tracer being inserted, until I was told that it had been after the procedure. |It is normal process for most of us to get these inserted, as it helps your surgeon to pinpoint the exact position of your tumour. The blue dye is very straightforward, so I'm sure that you'll be fine.

Make sure that your consultant knows that you are a fainter though, as this will give him/her the heads-up and they can be prepared, just in case. Do you have a date for surgery yet?

Please keep in touch and let us know how you get on. We are always here for you.

Kind regards,

Jolamine xx

Hi sorry to jump in on this. I to is newly diagnosed  and having a mat seed I think it is. . Is the same  thing. I am having surgery  in January.  I quite scared as I hate hospitals.  

Are you having your magsed fitted tomorrow. X 

Ah, glad is good luck lol. Thank you, it's on Thursday. It'll be fine as similar to the biopsy with a local anaesthetic xx

Xx

Sorry, predictive text before. Meant gl!

Hi Jo, I've sent you a friend request x

OK.  Will accept where do I do that x 

Thank you for sharing about relatively newly diagnosed stage one breast cancer- I am in the same spot. Awaiting final biopsy result but been told I at least need a lumpectomy with treatment afterwards- Jolamine thank you for your encouraging words- you’re really inspiring. I am just very fatigued emotionally with the worry of how to best tell my elderly parents this news.

Hi MellyN,

A very warm welcome to the forum. I am sorry that you already know, that you need at least a lumpectomy, before you get your biopsy results back. Breaking the news to family, especially, elderly parents, or children, is always a daunting task. How they take the news, depends a lot on how you break it to them. You will find that the more positive you can be about the outcome, the better they will deal with it. With a stage one breast cancer, your chances are good. 80% of breast cancers are cured these days and the earlier you catch it, the better you are likely to fare.

I have had both procedures and both were very straightforward, although strangely, I found the mastectomies easier to deal with post-operatively, than the lumpectomy. Unfortunately, I wasn't a suitable candidate for reconstruction, due to previous non-cancer related surgery, but I manage well with a selection of breast prostheses for different activities. You will find out after your surgery, what your treatment will be. All treatments can be pretty tiring, unfortunately, but they are all "perfectly doable".

Try not to worry about what you cannot change - almost impossible, I know! Place your faith in your care team, ask all the questions you need to. You'll find it helpful to write these down and take them to your consultations, as they change from one appointment to the next. If you can bring someone with you to your appointments, please do, especially for any results appointments.

You are going through one of the worst stages of a cancer journey just now. Waiting for results is always hard. There are so many unknowns and our over-active imaginations don't help, especially in the early hours of the morning. Irrespective of the outcome, you will feel better once you know exactly what you have to deal with.

I do hope that your results come through soon. Please keep in touch and let us know how you get on. We are always here for you.

Kind regards,

Jolamine xx

Many thanks Jolamine! I am sorry you have had to undergo so much intervention. It’s special of you to use your experience to reassure others thank you. 
I was fortunate that a wise friend advised that  I told our 18year old daughter when I first found the lump and was referred,  on the basis that she had left for her first uni term and it would have created a drama if we needed to visit her with bad news across her term. I could tell her when she was in our home at the start of the holidays. I am so happy that she is grown up and better able to take this on board being the age she is. I don’t take this for granted and I really feel for you if your family is any younger or more vulnerable.

I am waiting to tell my elderly parents once I have the full diagnosis this week following biopsies in the hope that it isn’t a worst case scenario and that they believe that I will make a good recovery. They have lost most of their friends to breast cancer. We are fortunate to be a generation younger with better outcomes -where a diagnosis is early- but I fear they won’t really take that on board.

Anyway, this is a very good place to read and write about this stuff thanks  and I will take the advice to write notes with the consultant and have someone with me. My biggest query is around why a lumpectomy and not a mastectomy  when this didn’t used to be the case. A touch cynically I wonder whether this is a policy driven by the efficiencies  of offering a speedy result of minimal intervention, dealing with the immediate cancer source and dismissing future risk of recurrence. If there is a serious risk of recurrence I would rather undergo one surgical intervention even if it were the more radical. Do you feel sorry that you weren’t advised to have your mastectomy from the beginning - May I ask whether you were advised one way or the other? It must be an extremely hard decision and one I hope I don’t have to make for want of a consultant deciding based on data outcomes including repeat lumpectomies. I am sorry to bring this up with you and hope you don’t mind xx Leaning on your being both patient and gracious in asking you this. Xx

To jump on a recent reply to you can I ask was your mastectomy on the same breast and if yes how long after your lumpectomy procedure. I had lumpectomy and my decision was purely based on surgeon advise that mastectomy wasn’t needed at this time-but will I regret that decision later down line 

To jump on a recent reply to you can I ask was your mastectomy on the same breast and if yes how long after your lumpectomy procedure. I had lumpectomy and my decision was purely based on surgeon advise that mastectomy wasn’t needed at this time-but will I regret that decision later down line 

Hi Mummymartin,

I had a double mastectomy just under a year after my initial lumpectomy. It is hard to predict which treatment might lead to a recurrence or a new growth further down the line. I am sure that if you did have a second bout, you might well have a regret that you didn't have a mastectomy, but there's no proof that this might have prevented regrowth anyway.

If you read my reply to MellyN, you will see that I didn't have radiotherapy and I often wonder if this might have prevented the second bout.

Kind regards,

Jolamine xx