October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and I thought I would share my experience in the hope of helping others spot the symptoms and save lives. I'm perhaps classified as 'unusual' but there are more and more women falling into a similar category. I did not have a lump, I was young (still am...lol!), I breast fed my baby, I ate a healthy diet and exercised regularly. But sometimes cells go wrong and the body can't sort it and before you know it, cancer is part of your life. Young, old, healthy or not. It can happen with or without a lump. Many of you know I have secondary breast cancer which has spread to my liver and bones. I was originally diagnosed aged 33 with Inflammatory Breast Cancer, which is a rarer type. I had apparently had it for some time but I was completely unaware of it. I was very good at checking my breasts regularly for lumps. I had read the advice and kept a close eye on myself for other symptoms too and this is what saved my life. One morning I noticed the underside of my right breast looked dimpled like orange peel. I remembered that this could be a symptom of breast cancer so immediately booked myself in for an appointment with the GP and insisted on a referral. My breast surgeon asked me if I had noticed a change in the size of my breasts and I mentioned that the right one was heavier than the left but had been like this for many years. Although I began to wonder if it had become heavier recently? I pondered on this for some time but I could never be sure. The tests showed a huge mass in my right breast!! How could I have missed this? I felt my breasts weekly!! I was cross with myself. But when I spoke to my consultant he reassured me that I could not have caught it any quicker as the type I have is like a spiders web. It does not form lumps that you can feel. The average person would not be able to feel this kind of cancer growing and it is often diagnosed at a more advanced stage. The first signs are other things like the orange peel/dimpling of the skin in my case. It was also in my lymph nodes and it was likely that there were cells elsewhere in my body. They hit me with chemo, radiotherapy and double mastectomy plus a maintenance therapy of zoladex and tamoxifen. In my case the cancer did return despite the fact that I flagged it up quickly at the first sign and the doctors acted very rapidly to get chemo into me. But I am still here, almost 5 years on from initial diagnosis and this might not have been the case if I hadn't been aware of the other signs to look out for, as well as lumps. I do have secondaries and I am receiving ongoing treatment but each time it returns, we catch it super fast and throw lots of drugs at it until it retreats again. More and more people are living with secondary breast cancer thanks to the amazing new drugs that are being researched and available. My veins do now struggle due to all the chemo treatments I have had, so they fitted me with a port which you can see in the picture on the left. It's brilliant!! The port is just above the edge of my top and fitted under the skin. The black dot is a tattoo to show its location... yep I've got a tattoo!! Lol...actually I have about 6 tattoos from radiotherapy too! The line that goes up from the port and over my collar bone is a little pipe that goes from the port and across my chest and into my heart. It is brilliant and means I don't need cannula's most of the time. I do still have to have the odd one for a general anaesthetic or for a CT Scan as these drugs can't go through it but it minimizes the use of my veins and saves me a lot of pain. These days, I have accepted that I caught it at the earliest possible sign, despite it being huge and I understand it was growing in a stealth like manner. But jumping and acting rapidly has saved my life. Please please please check your breasts regularly for any changes, lumps, size changes, nipple discharge, skin changes etc... Do not just look for a lump. Acting quickly can save your life. (There is a link at the bottom of this blog to the Breast Cancer Care website with information about signs and symptoms to look out for)
Please share this story with your family and friends to help me increase awareness of Inflammatory Breast Cancer and other breast cancers so more lives can be saved. Deborah x
1 Comment
Hannah Stretton
9/29/2017 09:05:39 pm
Thank you so much for sharing this. Xxx
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AuthorI run the Barrowby Bamboozler. I spend my time writing puzzles backwards!! Archives
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