Just diagnosed about a week ago

lynnmiller

I was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer. I have to have another mysectomy next Thursday to take out more tissue and a lymph node. My breast still hurts and I don't understand why they don't give you enough pain medications. My fear and concern is this from doing some of my own research it looks like I may have to have some radiation. If the chances are very low that my cancer will reappear after radiation then I will probably opt out. I will also have to take an estrogen blocker.

Has anyone experienced turning down radiation? I know this seems very vane but I don't want to lose my hair but I don't want to also go through all the side effects radiation can cause. I'm not sure what to do. I know I'm not there yet but just wanted to see what other ladies think.

keepthefaith

lynnmiller, sorry you found yourself here. There are a lot of hard decisions to make when you are DX'D with BC. I had LX and radiation. I don't think I experienced hair loss from radiation, but maybe some people do. I had chemo, so my hair was gone for the most part when I started rads. My hair did start growing back while doing rads, though. I don't think I had other SE's from Radiation; at least none that jumped out at me....but, it takes your body a while to recover from chemo, so maybe I'm not a good example. I've heard that you may experience some fatigue, but I don't think it's usually severe enough to change your life style, not work, etc. You aren't being vane....Take care of yourself, rest, hydrate. Make the decision that your intuition tells you to. Best wishes in your recovery.

Annette47

A couple things ... it sounds like you had a lumpectomy, not a mastectomy and they are going back in for a re-excision and a sentinel node biopsy. A mastectomy is a complete removal of the entire breast while a lumpectomy is the removal of the cancer and some surrounding tissue.

Yes, radiation is the standard of care following a lumpectomy, but please do your research about the benefits and side effects prior to making a decision. Radiation for breast cancer does not result in hair loss - at least not in hair loss to your head - if your underarm area (where lymph nodes are located) needs to be radiated (and not everyone's does) you may lose some or all of your underarm hair, but that is really about it. The side effects of radiation are usually fatigue (experienced to different degrees by people - for me it was enough to make me feel tired and draggy but not enough to keep me from functioning) and skin issues similar to a sunburn (I never even had that).

It's important to educate yourself and get accurate information about both your diagnosis and all of your treatments so that you can be an informed contributor to your own care. Talk to your doctors - ask questions and keep asking until you are sure you understand. This site (Breastcancer.org) is also a great source of accurate information. Be careful about using Google as some sites have more accurate information than others.

Best of luck to you as you continue on this journey.