Mum has an appt with an Oncoplastic Surgeon

hi

welcome to the online community 

this is the most annoying habit of the NHS, sending out these blasted letters with zero explanation .

I had my breast care nurse call me and tell me that I had an appointment with the consultant/ surgeon in the Primrose unit, our local cancer unit, so I asked what the results were, she said I can't tell you over the phone

I said well why would I need an appointment in the Primrose Unit if it's not cancer ???????????

She said "I'm sorry"

I muttered under my breath  " you will be"

she then called me back to tell me she'd managed to rearrange the appointment for out patients a day earlier  ... I didn't know whether to laugh or cry

In the end they told me it was DCIS, which is the least severe of all breast cancer, it needs to be watched but it's not 'life threatening'.

They told me it was 'only' DCIS and I'd 'only' need a mastectomy and it wasn't urgent.  

It's all fine and dandy for them to say that, isn't it .  Now, four years down the line, I can see their point of view but not that week. I wanted to seriously hurt someone for being so disorganised and flippant. 

Having said all that, how do you break the bad news that it might be breast cancer? 

I didn't appreciate Angelina Jolie going public with her double mastectomy but it really did help me break the news to my kids. 

I just googled him and he does sound very well trained, if your mother does require treatment it looks like she's in good hands

Carolyn

xxxxx

Thank you Carolyn for replying. 

Yes he seems well thought of but it has me really concerned. She will be going to this appt alone. I live in England she lives in Scotland. If she gets told bad news she will be alone :(  I can't shake the fact it must be bad news for her to be seeing someone like an Oncoplastic Surgeon...

However she has also been sitting on this result for almost 2 weeks.  If it were really bad news wouldn't they want to see her asap?

hi 

frankly I'd have rather gone to all my appointments alone but I know some people like company

The thing is there are so many different types of breast cancer and they even call you in to tell you it's not, it really does depend what it is.

It could be something other than breast cancer that they need to keep an eye on or it could be, like me, DCIS. 

DCIS is incredibly common, I only found out my cousin had it after I'd emailed her to tell her my news.  She sounded incredibly calm about it all, her surgeon sounded amazing, very kind and very reassuring and I have a feeling this Mr Massannat might be super nice.

Some surgeons are not great at hand holding.

The more sinister and more aggressive cancers tend to affect the younger women although that's not always the case, but generally speaking as we age our cell divisions slow down and things don't tend to be as troublesome. Ageing isn't fun what with knee joints and failing eyesight and I'd have more than settled for a few hot flushes rather than chemo, but I got through it. 

I think yes, they would call her in if it was urgent, as it turned out I had had DCIS for 3 years before it was reported, it was missed in the previous mammogram .

Then there's a whole array of early stage 1 breast cancers, there's also grading from 1-3.  She'll need to make notes or arrange for the report to be sent to her so you can help her get a grip on it, I had my reports send to both myself and my GP and the GP was actually pretty useful to chat through it. 

Breast cancer is bad news, as is any cancer, there's no getting away from it, and the cancer ads don't help, playing on people's fears to extract cash.  I like the BUPA ad, reclaiming the dance floor, that's my favourite. 

But, as my GP told me, I am a large ship, with a very small hole and all my pumps are still working. I'm not sinking yet.

Breast cancer treatments have progressed rapidly and the statistics are really pretty good for most of us, something like 95% are cured. 

I also have a link under my signature about women who have survived as that was a big epiphany for me, I was on the tube in London and a lady was asking me where I was going, and I said to the Marsden and that's the cancer hospital so she said, breast cancer? and I said, yes, and she looked into the middle distance and said  "I had that once"

it was the proof I needed that some women get through it and really do put it behind them.

more hugs

Carolyn

xxx