You know you're a cancer patient when....

Grroooaaaannnnn. . .

Bluebird---so funny about the Boob tree.......Hope you are gardening soon. I was Iam) a Master Gardener, but the combination of B.C and treatment in 2014 and a sever wrist fracture in 2015 has impacted what gardening activities I can enjoy. My right wrist just won't let me dig in the dirt like I want to....but I'm not ready for a condo without any garden space yet.

I hear that!

I was thrilled by my arthritis diagnosis that explained my back pain, but that still doesn't stop me from thinking every ache and pain is caused by mets. I was trying to strengthen my back doing crunches to help the pain, but I ended up hurting more. Does the mind do the logical thing and realize this particular exercise is making the problem worse? Of course not! It must be mets! Then I stopped doing the crunches and the new pain went away. YKYACPW you have lost your mind.

Cliff I can only imagine it must be an extra layer of difficulty to be a man who receives a diagnosis of BC

Best wishes to you with keeping the beast at bay. XX

1. When you post on BCO and most here assume you are a woman.

2. When you wear blue at your local town's breast cancer charity day and get asked WTF?

Cliff, we can't expect to have a public bc screening program for guys since it would involve needless testing for 99% of the male population.

However, men with a genetic predisposition to the disease should enrol in a regular screening program.

Which men should consider genetic testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2
• Those with personal or family history of male breast cancer.
• Those with personal or family history of at least two men with aggressive prostate cancers (Gleason score of 7 or greater).
• Men with a family history of ovarian cancer; a female relative who developed breast cancer at a young age (earlier than 50) or developed multiple primary breast cancers; or three or more female relatives with breast cancer at any age.
• Men of Ashkenazi Jewish descent and personal or family history of breast, ovarian, or pancreatic cancers, aggressive prostate cancer, or melanoma.
• Those with known family history of a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation.

And if we can persuade the pink charities to raise awareness of male bc then men will learn to check themselves the way women do.

Good on you for speaking out on the topic.

That's great that Kansas will do mammograms for men up to age 60. Unfortunately 65 is the average age men get this disease (55 in women). The fact that they don't advertise this means to me that they don't want the system overrun by males getting needless mammograms.

Like you, it took several months for me to persuade my PCP to send me for a scan, despite having benign lumps noticed 10 years previously and having a family history of bc. Doctors just aren't trained to look for it. As soon as my regular PSA screening results showed a concerning rise I was sent off to the urologist and was treated for prostate cancer in a timely manner.

Your 1.2cm lump would have been found if anyone cared to look for it. Often, though, these are dismissed as gynecomastia and valuable treatment time is lost while the disease spreads to become more apparent. As in your case and mine.

Clif, Travetext--thank you for pointing out the gender discrepancy in the way bc is thought of/looked for. Too true, and not right.

Good heavens, it just occurred to me how horrifying it must be to be a man in a mammogram waiting room. I cannot imagine how much harder it must be for a guy to go through that process that is so geared to women.

YKYACP...

When the color pink makes you want to cry.

When you're excited for Halloween because you'll look no stranger than half the people on the street.

When you've watched half of every bad movie on tv (because you keep falling asleep before the end) and it takes you an hour to read 5 pages.

When you almost cause a guy in a delivery truck to go off the road when he whips around for a second look, mouth agape, clearly trying to figure out if he's seeing a man in full makeup and earrings or a bald woman.

When your kids joke about how they've never eaten as well as they do on chemo nights (cause all your wonderful neighbors are pitching in to feed them).

When you step on the scale at the doctor's office and say "Crud! Lost another three pounds."

When you have a favorite vein.

When the two things you swore you'd never get were tattoos or fake boobs and now you're happy to have both!

Lulu---------on mark hahaha

Well I'm getting better but I sure identified with this one Lulu: "When you've watched half of every bad movie on tv (because you keep falling asleep before the end) and it takes you an hour to read 5 pages."

This topic needs the like button.

YKYACP

when you're in tears from back pain and sciatica, but happy because x-ray showsIT'S NOT CANCER!