The Journey Begins

Hi lynnwad

So sorry to see you having to join this particular club, but you have found yourself in a great place to be at a tough time.

The way you are feeling is totally normal with all those different swinging emotions it's the brains way of trying to make sense of it all, now you have been given your treatment plan and have that to focus on those should ease off.

If you are having chemo first to shrink the tumour down they may well insert a couple of small metal clips because in some cases it shrinks so much they need the clips to show on scanner screens to see where the tumour was for surgery.

The six sessions you are having may well be 3 x FEC and then switching to 3 x T (taxotere aka docetaxel)  Commonly written up as FEC-T all of these are given at 3 weekly intervals - It mostly starts with the FEC (3 drugs) first then you start the Herceptin in conjunction with the T part. In some cases the T part is given first, it can vary as everyone is different and your plan will have been tailored specifically for you from your results.

Do hop over the fence and come an join us all in the very active Breast Group here (link)

After you join just select New Discussion and copy in your above text as an introduction - You could also ask about the cold cap as several ladies have used this and can give you some tips about things like taking paracetamol an hour before to help with the ice cream headache, which is the best type of conditioner to use before hand, getting the cap a good fit etc.

There is also a regular monthly chemo club run in the breast group as there are so many of us it helps keep all the question messages and replies in one area so everyone has all the help in one discussion - Just look out for the May Chemo Club.

No doubt you have a head full of questions, so fire away, we're all here to help and the only silly question is the one that isn't asked :)

At least you have the next 10 days to get some pre chemo advice - Just try not to overthink everything and take it all one step at a time or you'll get information overload. You'll find it quite a steep learning curve for a couple of weeks. Remember most only post messages when they have a problem so you get a slightly skewed view of things, those who sail through chemo don't feel the need to be so involved.

Take care, G n' J  (breast group)

Me again I have joined the group but not sure how I find it again or paste my message in (not very techno) so any tips greatly appreciated  

Hiya lynnwad

No worries, it can be a bit tricky figuring this out at first on top of everything else that is going on :(

If you use the link above to get back to the breast group you should be able to view the messages either chronologically listed as 'activity' or discussions (by discussion title) When you find a discussion that is of interest and you may want to take part in or go back to - if you look at the discussion tools box (or for this discussion blog tools) on the right hand side and select 'Save this discussion in my favourites' they all get saved to your profile page under the favourites tab - to view yours see here....  You will notice the breast group you joined is already listed there - any discussion will be dded to the list to make them easier to find.

Just hit the reply button to any messages you want to reply to and add the discussion as a favourite to keep track of them :)

As for copying your text in to save retyping it all just drag your cursor over the text to highlight it and drag it to the new message, or you can use copy / paste - dunno if you are using a phone/tablet or laptop so it may differ depending on your device.

Hope this helps - if it seems a little confusing do reply back here and I can do that for you to get you started ?

Hugs, G n' J

Thank u I'll give it a go, I did reply to yr 1st message but it doesn't seem to be here ! Me the techno phobe I just wanted to say a huge thank you I feel better knowing there are others going thru same or have bn thru same, yr description is spot on chemo 1st, fec-t & herceptin lumpectomy & radiotherapy ... Roll on xmas (1st time I've ever wished for that since I was 10) Hugs back