Newly diagnosed. Needing a friend.

Welcome Suzanne and sorry that you had to join us. You will find this site very useful and there is many threads that you can find useful information and a great amount of support.

Here's the March 2015 surgery thread and you find others going thru the same surgery as you.

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/91/topic/828211

Good luck with your upcoming surgery!!!

Let us know what you need & we will try to help you and/or direct you to a person or a thread where someone has similar concerns or a special knowledge about almost any given topic.

I had a lumpectomy and was really glad it was an option for me.....much easier surgery, shorter recovery, less hassle (I don't think I could have gone through all the time/money/pain/uncertain results of reconstruction but would not liked dealing with prosthesises or going totally flat either). They only do 6 month mammograms for the first couple years & then you go back to yearly (and people can have a recurrence even with a mastectomy, so that is not a guarantee either). I didn't have any trouble with radiation, just got red & hot at the end (like a sunburn from the inside out).....use whatever lotion they recommend religiously (some people with mastectomies end up with radiation as well). If you are estrogen positive, anti-hormonals will be recommended no matter what kind of surgery you choose.

My surgery wasn't bad either. I didn't take any pain meds. The recovery was okay. The lymph nodes removal was a bit of an issue as it causes limited motion and increased risk of Lymphodema but it is necessary in some circumstances.

I had radiation because of the extend of the tumor and nodes involved. Radiation was a bit tiring. My skin held okay during it, got red and it peeled after the therapy was completed. I still feel a bit fatigued and tired. 

They are not oral chemo but hormone blockers and yes, if you have a high level of ER and PR +, you will likely need to take them. But if your levels are lower, you might be able to not take them. The higher the levels, the more likely they are to prevent recurrence. My levels are high and I plan to at least try to tolerate them but my neighbor had lower levels and decided not to. Also, I think your age might be a factor in the decision. She is younger than I am and probably didn't want to deal with the SE's. I don't want to either but at 52, I probably had a few more years until menopause anyway. My sister had it at 55-56.

How big is your tumor? I don't think you ever said?

I see. Yes, they are called hormone blockers. The one you will take is different from me since you are post menopausal. Hang on. I will get you the name and you can read about it.

http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/hormonal

suzannecarol - hormonal therapy has an anti-cancer effect, but is not oral chemo per se.  If you are pre-menopausal the only option is Tamoxifen.  Tamoxifen works by blocking estrogen from the receptors on breast cells, while allowing circulating estrogen to continue - it is prescribed to pre-menopausal women to allow estrogen to continue to provide benefit to heart and bones.  If you are post-menopausal (or pre-meno with ovarian suppression) you have the option of three different drugs - known as aromatase inhibitors.  These drugs work by suppressing the formation of estrogen by stopping the enzyme aromatase from converting androgens into estrogen.  These drugs include Arimidex (anastrozole), Femara (letrozole) and Aromasin (exemestane).  Aromasin works slightly differently from the other two and has a steroidal factor.

Glad you have made a decision regarding your surgery - once you know the plan and have things in place it is a bit easier to relax.  Have you had a consult with a radiation oncologist yet to discuss types of radiation?

trvler - yes - Tamoxifen blocks the receptors but allows estrogen to continue to be made and circulate.  It is blocking to breast cells, your tumor would have been removed by the time you take it.  Keep in mind that not everyone experiences all, or any, of the SEs you read about.  I don't think at this point it is well understood why some experience certain, or more severe, side effects from Tamoxifen - like hot flashes or uterine wall thickening, and other don't.  There is some thought that it has to do with drug metabolizing mechanisms.  Keep in mind that those who are taking it with no bothersome SEs are probably not posting about it.

Also, on some tissues, Tamoxifen itself acts like pseudo estrogen, such as the uterine tissue.

suzannecarol - you would be meeting with a medical oncologist after surgery for any systemic treatment you may need - like hormonal therapy, and a radiation oncologist to plan your radiation after lumpectomy.

It's hard when your only experiences with cancer are really bad ones. For me, a high number of the people I knew with cancer had died, including my dad at 57 and his wife at 45. My neighbor died a couple of years ago. So when you first hear the news, your mind goes there. You can't help it. But I am glad you found us. This site has been so important to me since I found it. I hope we can help you feel better, too.

Suzannecarol,

You can PM me--for questions or concerns--just click on the link to my name and it should give you a way to private message me. I check these boards often, and sometimes I know it's hard through all the posts to find the answer to questions. Or the answers freak you out depending on someone's experience. I remember I had never heard of lymphedema and was terrified I would for sure get it, after reading all the posts about it--and no, I didn't. I am a voracious reader and researcher, and in a logical state can actually understand what I read, but that early b.c. dx-highly emotional frame of mind everything I read seemed awful, terrible, and a threat to me.

No one that I know of takes more than one hormonal therapy drug, but someone might answer that for me. If you are post-menopausal, your doc will choose one and you can ask questions about it. If you are pre-meno, tamoxifen is the route to go. I have taken both. No real problems for either.

My lifestyle has not changed, really, at all since dx except I get even more exercise and eat better than I previously did. Believe it or not I feel happier than I was before dx. I realize that I was worrying about all the wrong things. I have to work a little harder at sex, but only because of the menopausal thing--I think, and lots of women find that makes a diff in desire regardless of bc or no bc. My husband and I have not changed our habits much at all in that way.

I have had no lasting side effects from any tx, and kept my below-my-shoulders hair (when it began to grow in after chemo) short for about two years because I liked the new do so much. Now it's growing back, and that's okay too.

The only weirdness is the lack of feeling in breasts because of my bmx and recon. I'm more relieved that I feel I increased my chances to protect myself than focusing on those changes in my body.

I am glad to be your bc friend if you would like. I've been through it all, as you can see by my sig. hugs/Claire in AZ