I have refused chemo oncologist is a nightmare not read my notes

Hi Julieshoes

I just want to say hi and welcome to the club we would rather not have had to join. I had chemo recently [completed end March 2021]. I am older than you and although originally scared witless by the whole BC diagnosis and prospect of chemo, I went ahead with it.

In common with lots of ladies on here, I did find it tough going at times [during the darkest Covid lockdowns etc], but not nearly as bad as it is made out to be in the press. Some ladies have sailed through with no side-effects and carried on working. 

We are all different and how you would fare would depend on which drugs you were prescribed and a lot of individual factors. I have to say from my experience that the care team are great and do everything they can to support us through the chemo. They give support meds to minimise the SEs and if these are not quite doing it, there is a help line at the end of the phone. They can tweak the support meds or adjust the chemo drug or dosage to help us through in a way that is doable and manageable for us.

There is also this wonderful community who will do their very best to give you support and advice and tips to get you through. There will always be someone who has had the same treatment regimen as you and is a bit further along this rollercoaster ride.

Personally, I would want my Onc to be a walking textbook and to have as much knowledge and experience as possible. I think that chemo is only offered, if, on balance the benefit to us of getting the chemo outweighs the risks from any side effects.

It might help you to take some time to let yourself adjust to the prospect, to speak to the McMillan helpline and also to wait for advice from others on here who have been through it before you. Please don't reject chemo outright without thinking it through fully. I think none of us want to need it. However, I don't regret  having it, and would do so again if needed to get better chances of not having a recurrence and having a better potential life expectancy.

Wishing you all the best

WallyDug 

Hi Juliesshoes

Welcome to the forum and sorry to hear that you have been diagnosed with breast cancer. While I won’t say chemo Is easy it is doable. If you are using google to do your research I would suggest you stop using it as what’s on google about cancer is often out of date. You would be better off using this site to do your research as it is more up to date then google.

If you change your mind and do the chemo you will find that your medical team will do everything in their power to make sure you come through it ok.

I was diagnosed last year and had chemo as well surgery and radiotherapy. I found that the chemo wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. I had few side effects and those I did have I used the medication my team prescribed for me and it helped. After six months of treatment I am now in remission.

Wishing you the best of luck whatever you decide about doing chemo as well as radiotherapy.

Best wishes

Daisy63

Thank you for your response, my oncologist has just become a consultant from registrar.  She has zero people skills my breast surgeon knew I didn’t want chemo said he was going to write some personal notes, on my referral to oncology she hadn’t read them.  I

unfortunately he left the hospital a couple of weeks ago but his replacement is calling me tomorrow so I can find out what he wrote.  If it was a matter of life or death I wouldn’t hesitate and that’s not to say I wouldn’t consider it at a later date should the arise.   

My oncologist said anything 4%and over benefit is worth having chemo. I was also told that you can stop it at any point if you need to. Fortunately my benefit was only 1.2% so I didn’t have it. If it was me in your shoes I’d have it with the knowledge I can stop if I need to. 
It is really difficult trying to make the right decision and all you can go on is the facts they give you. 
you can do this. X