Nurses with Breast Cancer

I have read as well that nurses on night shift have a higher incidence of breast cancer.  I never thought about the diseases or the artificial lighting we are exposed to.  We are certainly exposed to many chemicals.  My mom always thought that my sisters (neither were nurses) got their breast cancer because they lived in a certain nieghborhood when they were very young.  Many children in that neighborhood got cancer when they got older.  I never lived there.  I do know that nursing is a very stressful job and stress can be a prime factor in breast cancer occurance as well.  I see so many nurses give so much of themselves to their jobs and their patients and then not take care of themselves.  We need to work on that area for ourselves and our colleagues!!  I have to admit in my 27 years of nursing, I have only worked with a couple of nurses with breast cancer.  But, my perception could be skewed.   

I think its a shame that people (collectively ) assume it is something we did in our lives that caused us to be the "chosen ones"  I look at it as dodging the bullet, I believe that everyone , everyone has the potential to be where we are, there is nothing you can do, diet , excercise, vitamins, nothing it is just a matter of cell division, I just didn't dodge the bullet this time, it is a crap shot.  Those are my thoughts, I hope I am not offending anyone. = >

Hi!  I too am an RN with 31 years experience. 20 of which were in the OR! Who knows what makes us part of this club!  I've been zapped with radiation, exposed to gases, lived in poluted areas, exposed to 2nd hand smoke, eaten meat, drank coffee, and eaten processed foods. I've worked all shifts, been on call, and have had plenty of stress! Would I change any of it, I doubt it! I am happily married with a teenage daughter, now I work part-time,as an RN, doing cataract surgery. I went back 3 weeks after my mastectomy! I think living a full life and doing what makes you happy is the answer, who knows why we ended up here, we can't change it anyway. Find a place where you have peace of mind and go forward!  My best to all-

Hi, sisters!  Hi, Anne!  I'm a PT & am glad to find this thread.  I was thinking of starting a thread myself for healthcare professionals with BC.  There's at least one mammographer on this forum & I'm going to let her know about this thread.  Can you believe it?  How positively ironic & difficult to be a mammographer, of all things, trying to figure out how the heck you can face returning to work.  Except maybe for the onco nurse that posted here!  Now I have to go back to remember who that was.

Mostly, it's been a good thing to let my docs & so forth know I'm a PT, because they all seem to relax more & realize they don't have to translate medical-ese into English or get taken aback when I ask detailed questions about treatment & research data.  Also, from the get-go, my breast surgeon was soooo helpful about making sure I didn't talk myself into going back to work too quickly; she made me stay out until I was thoroughly healed, partly because I do have to lift patients & partly because she wanted me to feel able to focus on my patients & not be totally frazzle-headed.  I'm still frazzle-headed, but at least not all the time!!

I work in homecare for the Visiting Nurses.  Homecare rocks!  I love doing it & I love my nurse buddies.  The nurses I team with the most, i.e., share patients with, are like my sisters & they have looked after me with great compassion.  All my colleagues have been completely awesome.  It makes me tear up just thinking about it.  

I think it's really hard for us to be patients, to ask for help, to be on the receiving end of all this.  I was so glad when I finally did get back to work.   A day on the "front lines" of homecare is better than 5 minutes as a cancer patient!!   I have felt positively schizoid sometimes, because the clinician part of me will know certain things that the patient part of me has forgotten.

Also, for virtually everything else, including a lumbar diskectomy 4 years ago, I have had no problem being looked after at the local hospital by my colleagues whom I've known & worked with forever.  But after the second mammogram, when I was told to get a biopsy, I went elsewhere to get followed & treated.  RI is a small state, so in a way, everybody in healthcare knows everybody else.  But as it turned out, I was glad I got my biopsy & breast MRI & lumpectomy & radiation, etc. & so forth at places where I could just be a patient who happened to be a PT & not where I would know everybody walking down the corridor.

Hi There!

I just noticed this thread!!  I am also an RN.  In the past I have worked off and on depending on where we were living at the time.  Right now I am not working because we are living in Paris.

The last time I worked, which was about 3 years ago, I worked at night. This may be difficult to understand, but working was my way of keeping up with my profession and helping others at the same time.  I don't have to work but I worked 2 nights a week and loved every minute.  It kept life interesting and I got to be more than just a wife and mom.

Now, everyone tells me that working nights is most likely the reason that I got BC.  At first this made me feel very angry.  All my life  l've lived a very healthy lifestyle which included lots of exercise,organic foods and no red meat.  My parents did the same. I am the first one on either side of my family to get any kind of cancer.  I realize now, that anything can be the cause of BC and lifestyle and or environment may or may not have anything to do with it at all.

Anyway, my family and I are growing stronger and closer together through all this.  In some ways each of us seems to be experiencing the life lessons that have been brought to my family  through my experience.  Our 4 year old seemed confused at first especially because of all the changes that we made when I started chemo.  Suddenly she found herself in a full time preschool instead of home with me.  Now a nanny lives with us because when she is at home, I have been too tired to watch her properly and keep her safe.  Now she is soooo happy to be in school with other young children, making new friends, etc.

My eldest daughter, 17, is seeing a psychologist because she is terrified of losing me.  Two of her friends have lost their moms from breast cancer.

My son, 14, seems to have adjusted ok but then, at that age, they don't always express their true feelings. 

DH has been wonderful but he has to travel a lot and is away much of the time so I feel alone so much. 

 Anyway, I am very very grateful for this website.  It has been a lifeline for me  especially by my being an expat in France  and not being very fluent in French yet.  I have learned  and shared a lot  with other BC sisters........things that I would not have learned otherwise.  I am so appreciative.

Roya,

Don't be angry about your time on night shift, which you loved. I am really nowhere near convinced that this has a direct link to breast cancer. Sure, cortisol levels change on nights, but there are a gazillion night shifters out there, not just in nursing, who don't have bc. Yet, anyway.

The real reason you got breast cancer? You have breasts. Beyond that--we just have hunches, but not facts.

I'm sorry your daughter is going through this fear phase. I hope counseling helps her.

Take care of yourself. We're here for you,

Anne

Hi  fellow  nurses and friends,

Hope everyone is getting on well with treatments. I don't think working nights caused my cancer but I do want to hear and talk about any and all theories.

 I need aggressive cancer treatment--triple negative is my dx-- but it's semi-aggressive for now because I'm waiting for my Neupogen Foundation to kick in. Here's hoping my Metformin is really working. I take heart from the report I read about it on this site. That it is somehow protective..sorry I can't remember the details but the report is on this site.

My tumor was large--3.5 cms--came out of nowhere, and is  triple negative, yet all nodes(19) removed by my surgeon were negative. Metformin doesn't affect survivorship...Diabetic stats are included in article but any  help is good at any stage of this disease.

 http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/chemotherapy/new_research/20080606b.jsp

 I am also  totally frazzled but praying for all of us to get better ASAP! I want my doc to give me something for my nerves this afternoon to get my Foundation papers done again; the Foundation hadn't received them as of yesterday and I sent them 12 days ago.  I am about to jump off the 26th floor of my coop.lol

 hugs to everyone

Mina

I send much love and  and warm hugs to you Jo Ann... back soon.

Thanks Jo Ann, for the welcome.  I sent the link to this thread to a mammographer who is dealing with BC.   We used to have a hospice department in our agency, but Medicare nearly put us out of business when OASIS came in (that is a form of torture disguised as endless paperwork, for those of you who are not in homecare!), so we had to turf our hospice department to someone else.  Now, that the someone else may be going out of business, we may be doing it again.  I worked with the hospice team when we had it inhouse before & occasionally, the outside hospice agency subcontracts PT's for their patients, so I've gotten to do it again.

One of my favorite patients ever was a women on hospice care that I treated & was even her case manager sometimes, who died of ---- you guessed it --- breast cancer.  I met her when she started getting bone mets & having path fx's.  That was 12 years ago.  She gave me a silver-spoon handle that her daughter had turned into a key-ring, which I still have & use every day.  I think of her with great poignancy these days.

Kathi

Welcome Pennyk0199

One of my dear friends is mammo tech, her mom died of BC and she tested positive for BRCA gene, she had three boys under the age of ten and opted for bilat prophy mast with recon.  I am an ER nurse and I can't help but wonder when you have a mammo who does it for you ???  Your co workers ?  Finding something on your films must have been so hard for them too.  I mean the radiologist knows you so well, it must have been a tough time. Thanks for the job that you do  !!!

Anna

Nurse & Healthcare Sisters, if any of you has a moment, maybe you could visit this thread & reassure this poor woman that not all nurses & healthcare clinicians are such bleeping idiots.

http://community.breastcancer.org/forum/5/topic/723711?page=1

Thanks!  Kathi

I was just dx 10/22/08 and am schd for bilateral mastectomies in 4 days (Nov 5). My Biggest question is what kind of sensitivity will i have on my chest when my incisions are healed. Will I be able to feel touch to my chest? Is there anywhere on this site where intimacy is discussed? I have other questions, too. I am planning not to do recontruction. Should I have a plastic surgeon as part of my surgery team in 4 days? Aghh . I need lots of information/questions answered. I do have an appt.that I requested  /c the surgeon Monday. I don't know any results other than IDC, and 1 cm. What *must* I know before surgery? Thank you all soooo much. I am (oddly enough) a prn Breast Bx RN at a Breast Dx Center. I also work for the state Health Dept as a Wellness Nurse. I worked for a couple years as a pediatric chemo nurse, and also on GYN surgery floor, school clinic, free clinic, kids camp, also direct entry midwife before nursing school. 

Hi Sara

 I am 5 days post bilat mastectomies. I cannot comment on the feeling after incisions are healed. Now, I have numbness under both axillas and r upper arm at times. I have odd sensations to my chest at times such as twinges, cool and tingling. I have 2 jackson pratt drains. I declined reconstruction. If you are unsure, you should talk with a plastic surgeon pre op. If you are certain about no reconstruction, talk with the surgeon about the anticipated appearance of your chest.  Also are you having a sentinal node sampling during surgery? Another consideration is a pre op PT eval and expectations for post op PT. I was a bit unprepared for the emotional reaction after surgery. I went home 12hrs after my surgery. On the second post op day I was an emotional wreck and it was hard for me to give in to it but important to do so.  My partner and friends were amazingly supportive. I couldn't have gotten thru this without them. I am truly blessed to have such wonderful people in my life. Anyway, this is my experience. I agree with KAK that you need to feel confident and comfortable in your decisions.

Take care and let others help you

Hi Kathi,

I think you are correct when you say to give yourself permission to be human and have your emotions. I have finally said to myself that I am going to give myself that permission, now to just follow through, baby steps...

Also thanks for putting in the bit about areolar pain, thought I was going a bit wingy there. I am finding even material against my nipple is extremely sensitive, getting a bit better though.

Thanks again for your help.

p

Dear KAK and Haltsalute, Thank you very much for your helful posts. I went to see the BS today and am feeling a littel better (though mostly from the circle of loving women on this site!).

 I do have a question for everyone and it is this. The surgeon said he does not use drains. I am having a bilateral on this Wednesday. I have taken care of lots of pts. who have had reductions or mastectomies and I have never seen one that didn't have drains. The surgeon tells me that he often has pts that return 1-2 times a week to have fluid drained from the upper chest. I live an hour away from the town he is in and i do not like this idea. He is pretty firm that he will not use drains. (He also will not tell me anything about my ER, PR or HER2 status until after my surgery -- he is a bit militaristic in his manner -- we get along. He just is very paternal).

Have any of you seen or experienced not having drains for a bilateral mastectomy?

What was the outcome? 

I am partly of a mind to call him and say drains or no surgery... 

Blessings, Sara