Hi, I'm a Newbie

Another newbie here...mammo and ultrasound mid-June, biopsied the following week, received diagnosis on 6/29 and  made the rounds of breast surgeon, med onco and rad onco.  I'm also a Type 2 diabetic who's really worried about the possibility of chemo messing up all the good work I've done for 9 years to avoid neuropathy and kidney or liver damage.  Just turned 60.  Found the lump while on 30th anniversary trip to Kauai (now that's how you ruin a fabulous trip!).   I have a meeting on Monday with BS to hopefully schedule surgery and SN biopsy the week of 7/19.  Then I'm taking my 81-year-old mom with Alzheimers to her hometown in NH for a week to visit family and friends.  My kids all live out there, I have 3 grandkids and my best friend in Mass. So it will be a nice diversion.

 Then the work starts.  Still haven't agreed to chemo...need the Oncotype DX score, the proliferation score and a consult with an endocrinologist on the long term effects of chemo relative to diabetics.  If anyone has any experience here, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

My vacuum-assisted core biopsy was a disaster and my BS says that the lumpectomy will be easy by comparison, so I'm not too worried about that.  My med onco (who I really didn't like and will probably find a different one) has tried to scare me into doing chemo first, but I need to know the status of the SNs.  He told me my tumor was much larger than indicated on mammo and US, but I am sure he's feeling the blood-filled cavities from the biopsy.  I had an US after the biopsy and every core was filled.  Not good - still tender after 3 weeks and still some bruising.    But much, much better than it was.

 I am glad to have a forum like this, especially for those of us who are "aged" like fine wine

 Michelle