Hi,
This is my first post.
so in may we discovered that my nana has fungating breast cancer. She lives in wales so me and my mum don’t get to see her as often as we would like due to work.
my sister actually discovered it when my nana had asked for some big plasters from the chemist. My sister asked to see what she wanted it for and took a picture to take to the chemist. (My nana has refused to see a doctor for anything since my grandad died 13 years ago 
). Anyway .. chemist told her to phone an ambulance, my nana would not allow this.. told her if she did she wanted nothing more to do with her. So she managed to persuade her to have a telephone consultation via video call, it was then he told her about her cancer and asked her to attend hospital for tests and treatment, she refused. He agreed to get district nurses to go out weekly to change her dressings, this quickly turned into 3 weekly visits. My sister asked how long they think she has and all they could say is ‘how long is a piece of string? But it’s not looking good’. She has gradually got worse, very tired, tumours multiplying and bleeding but she was adamant she wanted to go away in a caravan. So 3 weeks ago she got her little holiday with my mum and sister and me, my kids and my sisters kids stayed on a nearby campsite. She slept the whole week bless her.
So in may I decided to contact my GP about an abnormal mole on my arm that had changed and been bleeding. The GP prescribed me steroid cream and said they would contact in 2 weeks to follow up. I didn’t hear from them and so on the 13th July I contacted them again via econsult and sent a picture, I received a call from a GP on the 16th stating she was referring me to get it checked by dermatology. I then had an appointment with dermatology on the 29th July where she took one look and said she thought it was cancer so wanted to remove straight away. So that’s what they did, she told me I would hear back with my results within 2 weeks. 3 weeks had passed and I had fooled myself to Believe that not news is good news’ but rang them simply for a definitive answer. They couldn’t find my results so states they would chase it up and be in touch. They were in touch a week later .. I received a telephone call from a dr telling me I had superficial spreading melanoma and would require sentinel lymph node biopsy and wider local excision. She gave me a lot of information and no time to process it and I had a 4 hour drive home with my kids (can’t show them I’m upset or worried). She told me I would receive an appointment within 2 weeks.. so anxiety has been taking over this week and I decided to contact her to see if there was an appointment yet as it has been 2 weeks and to ask some questions but She stated ‘your not the only person we have and your not at the top of the list either, we are currently contacting people to cancel surgeries you’ll get an appointment when we have one’. At that I just thought .. doesn’t matter about my questions I’ll Leave it at that.
but I fee really upset and frustrated because i don’t understand anything and my minds going 100000 miles a minute. I can’t process anything and my anxiety is through the roof.
the only person I would normally talk to is my mum, but don’t feel like she needs anymore worries, she knows about me but is also dealing with her own mum who’s dying
Hi and a very warm welcome to the online community
It sounds like you've had a lot to deal with at the moment so no wonder your cancer diagnosis has left you feeling anxious and confused.
I was diagnosed with melanoma 4 years ago and can remember very well how numb I felt. Like you I had loads of questions I needed to ask after I'd left the appointment so I phoned up the skin cancer nurse specialist (SCNS) I had been given the details of to arrange an appointment. She was able to answer my questions and help me feel more comfortable with what was happening.
Have you been given the contact details of a SCNS? If not, give your consultant's secretary a call and ask who the SCNS is at your hospital. I realise that with Covid, going in to chat with her will probably not be possible but you should be able to speak to her over the telephone.
As the community is divided up into groups, I'm going to suggest that you join us over in the Melanoma forum where you can ask questions, share experiences and get support from others with melanoma.
To join just click on the link I've created and then choose 'click to join' on the page that opens. You can then introduce yourself and post questions after selecting '+New' or '+' (depending on the device you're using) and join in with existing conversations by clicking on 'reply'.
I have had both the wide local excision (WLE) and sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) that you will be having so I'm happy to share my experiences with you if you have any questions you want to ask.
When you have a minute, it would be really useful if you could pop something about your journey so far into your profile as it really helps others when answering or looking for someone with a similar diagnosis. It also means that you don't have to keep repeating yourself. To do this click on your username and then select 'Profile'. You could copy and paste most of what you've said here into your profile or take a look at mine by clicking on my username to see the sort of thing you could add.
I'll watch out for you over in the group.
x
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
Thank you I will join and have a look at your profile.
it was the SCNS that I spoke to the other day that made me just feel worse and not want to ask anything. But my anxiety is soo bad I think it’s just the fear of the unknown and I can’t concentrate on work at all
Morning and how are you feeling this morning?
That's very unusual for a SCNS to be unsympathetic in my experience 
Perhaps you caught her on a bad day.
Do join us in the Melanoma forum as we won't be grumpy and will hopefully be able to answer most of your questions based on our experience.
Struggling with anxiety is common when diagnosed with cancer so you might like to take a look at this information from Macmillan on managing anxiety. It gives lots of hints on how you can manage your anxiety as well as a link to Anxiety UK.
Remember, all the anxiety and worry in the world will make no difference to when you get your surgery date, but will make a difference to how you get through this.
x
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
Hi
How are you feeling and how did your appointment with the GP go on Tuesday?
x
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
Thank you for messaging.
She moved it forward to Monday- she called to saY she has received a notification from the hospital .. asked me for an update .. what the plan was .. when my appointment was ect .. I told her there isn’t one. Explained about my call last week she SCNS and she said I should have received an appointment date and she was going to chase it up. She said she understands certain surgeries being cancelled but this should be priority 
GP also said if I want to write a list of questions and either book a telephone appointment with her or email her she will try and answer them the best she can. Which I thought was lovely of her.
Tuesday I got a call from the hospital .. thought it was an appointment but they rang just to tell me I get free prescriptions now lol but I already got them anyway 
hope you are well 
Glad to hear that you have such a lovely GP and that she's going to chase up your surgery date for your WLE and SLNB .
When I queried the length of time it would be between my diagnosis and WLE and SLNB my SCNS explained that the WLE was 'just a mopping up exercise' as the melanoma has already been removed when you have your original excision. The WLE just takes a further margin of skin away all around the original site to make sure that no stray cells have been left behind.
I can see that you've joined the melanoma group so if you have any questions about your upcoming ops, just start a new thread there and we'll answer them based on our experience.
x
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
Thank you, what’s the relevance of the thickness as that’s one thing I didn’t understand when she said it’s 3.2mm x
Hi
When the pathology laboratories look at the lesion that was sent to them, if they discover that it's melanoma then the depth is measured, known as the Breslow thickness, so the consultant knows how deep the melanoma has grown and it can then be staged. Clicking on this link will take you to Macmillan's information on staging melanoma.
x
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
