No oncologist?

Hi Expatm,

Thank you for getting in touch with us and welcome to our online community.  My name is Adrienne and I’m one of the Cancer Information Nurse Specialists at Macmillan.  I see that you’ve joined our breast cancer forum. I hope that you’re finding it helpful and supportive.

I’m so sorry to hear how much you’ve been struggling with your mood and feeling depressed.  It’s completely understandable that you would have worries and concerns, especially as there was a long delay in obtaining the scan from Spain.  That being said, it’s great to hear that your surgery was successful and no chemotherapy or radiotherapy was needed.

An oncologist is assigned when someone requires treatment following their surgery.  This is known as adjuvant treatment.  They specialise in chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy and radiotherapy.  Thankfully, as you didn’t need adjuvant treatment, you were not referred to an oncologist and your care was under the breast cancer surgeon.  That being said, your breast care nurse should still be there to support you.  If you feel like you are being fobbed off, you can ask to be assigned a different nurse.  Understandably, you may have some questions around the delay of the mammogram report from Spain and although your surgery was successful, you can still ask to speak to your breast surgeon about this.  Either via your breast care nurse or by contacting the surgeon’s secretary and asking for an appointment.

Feeling abandoned is not unusual when cancer surgery/treatment has finished.  Not having that support network from the hospital anymore can make you feel alone and the fear of recurrence can be overwhelming.  Add to that the potential side-effects of the letrozole and it’s not surprising that you have all of these feelings.  There is no right or wrong way to feel but it’s important that you have support to be able to talk about these feelings.  It would be very helpful to speak to your GP about your mood so they can help and support you going forward.  You can also look here to see what support services are available in your area.  This could be a Macmillan Centre or Maggie’s Centre and they may have counselling services and/or support groups where you can receive peer support.  Penny Brohn UK also offer counselling and coaching although there is a waiting list for this.

You mentioned ‘Moving Forward’ but I wonder if our online HOPE programme would also be helpful.  It was co-designed alongside people living with cancer and is based on positive psychology mindfulness and cognitive behavioural therapy.  It is built on 25 years of research evidence at Coventry university and is designed to support you in developing techniques and strategies to manage several aspects of living with or after cancer.

I hope this information was helpful but please know, you can always call us on the support line.

Wishing you all the best going forward.

Take care,

Adrienne

Cancer Information Nurse Specialist

You can also speak with the Macmillan Support Line team of experts. Phone free on 0808 808 0000 (7 days a week, 8am-8pm) or send us an email or use webchat.

Ref: AMc/AR