Recently diagnosed

Mlg1

Hi,

I was recently diagnosed with breast cancer on 9/6. The mass is about 3 inches. Very large. They don't know what type of cancer it is. They don't know if it is moved to other parts of the body. My ob-gyn said to wait about 1 week for the cancer surgeon to call me. I am extremely worried and why does it take soo long for the call back. She said the next process was for the surgeon to cut me open and see how cancer progressed and get the tumor out. Is this normal? I feel at some point I should get a second opinion. When?

Thanks,

Mlg

dtad

Hi there. So sorry you have to be here but welcome. I know you will find this forum both comforting and informative. The next thing you should do is call the breast surgeon for an appointment. Don't wait for them to call you! Who did the biopsy? The biopsy should tell you what kind of cancer it is. I would wait for all the information to come in before you get a second opinion. You should have a breast MRI and a few more tests before deciding on treatment options. Please feel free to private message me if you want to talk more details. Good luck and keep us posted...

Michellelynn875

Hi there, I'm so sorry about your diagnosis. It's so frustrating to play the waiting game. Every minute I waited felt like eternity!

It takes time to fit into schedules, wait on return calls. Oh it's so nerve racking. You want to get this out, now! Right? Well take a few breaths. First I received my diagnoses from my ob, then I scheduled an appointment with a surgeon. I saw him the following week. Then I scheduled an appointment to meet am oncologist. He's the one that was hard to get into. It took two weeks to meet him. Once I did meet him, things moved quickly. A few test were run, MRI, PET scan, we had to wait for the biopsy to come back telling me what the cancer was made of (mine was er pr positive, grade three). Then the port was installed that following week and chemo started two weeks later. It felt like it took an eternity.

Although everyone's treatment plan may not be the same. Your treatment will start moving quickly once your team is assembled.

Hang in there, you've got this!

Michelle

VLH

Mig1, I would echo the question of how you got your diagnosis? If based on a core needle biopsy, you should be able to get the pathology report that will tell you what kind of cancer you have and whether it's hormone receptor and/or HER2 positive. You could go ahead & schedule an appointment with another breast surgeon right away. If you get into Surgeon 1 first, that can be your first opinion. If the other should happen to have an earlier opening, Surgeon 1 can be your second opinion. As noted above, you'll be working with a team of experts.

You'll need a Medical Oncologist (MO), who will make recommendations about whether chemo or targeted therapy is appropriate. Although you can meet without the pathology information, the MO could only speak in generalities vs. making specific recommendations. It's possible that your team might recommend chemo or targeted therapy before surgery (called neoadjuvant therapy). That way, the tumor will hopefully shrink making for a smaller surgical incision plus you'll know how effective the particular drugs were in treating your cancer.

If you choose to have a lumpectomy, which is the most conservative surgery, you'll typically have radiation, which is supervised by a Radiation Oncologist (RO). If you choose a single / unilateral or double / bilateral mastectomy and would like what's called reconstruction surgery to use either your own tissue or an implant to replace the breast, there will also be a plastic surgeon (PS). It's all a bit overwhelming in the beginning and challenging to learn the terminology and widely used abbreviations, but just take it one step at a time.

This forum will be invaluable in helping you so feel free to reach out with questions. There is some excellent information available on the Internet, but you need to be very discerning when it comes to which sources are credible. If you haven't already, take a look at the main BreastCancer.org website. I've also found the American Cancer Society people incredibly sympathetic and informative so consider calling them. We all know how shocking and scary this is for you!