Breast cancer and me : results

The week following the biopsy marked my 60th birthday. As it happened this was unusually good timing, as I spent the week with a friend enjoying the River of Light show on the Mersey, and visiting Harrogate (great Victorian Turkish baths). I also went to Fountains Abbey again, which was even more beautiful than I remembered it, and there was a birthday tea at Betty's world famous tea-room, and a fan-girl visit to the hotel where Agatha Christie fled to in Harrogate.

On the Sunday I returned home to the other side of the country, and got a message from a friend asking me if I wanted her to come with me on Tuesday.

At this stage I was still It's not cancer - Oh no  it isn't - Oh yes it is. I've lived alone for most of my adult life, I have very little in the way of family, and live in the middle of nowhere. All of which makes me fairly self-sufficient, if rather inept. I hadn't thought of asking anyone to come with me to the biopsy, so was a little taken aback when Anne offered to come along.

Top tip - if anyone offers to come with you for the results, say yes. You never know what they might be, or how you might react.

So results day arrived and I was given a lift to the hospital. At this point all was rather cheery, though I was beginning to feel rather nervous.

And then I met the consultant, and it was cancer, to be exact an invasive duct carcinoma. Leonard the lump is small, around 8 mm. He's treatable, and it's unlikely that it's spread further. At best, it will be surgery, radio therapy and then a hormone treatment for 5 years. At worst (should Leonard have got his chums involved) it will be more surgery, chemotherapy and all of the above as well. 

Now there was a choice to be made - I could wait until the end of November for the op (the results were given to me on the 4th November) or there was an opening at a different hospital in 6 days time. 

I wanted Leonard gone, I opted for the appointment on November 10th.