Undiagnosed but terrified, Unsure what to do and New

Hi Sashie19

Welcome to the forum and sorry to hear that you may have breast cancer.  Keep calling your doctors to try to get an earlier appointment and if you haven't mentioned it say to them that the wait is affecting your mental health.  You certainly shouldn't have to be waiting so long to be seen.

In the meantime why not call the Macmillian helpline and talk to someone about how you are feeling, you don't have to have the diagnosis confirmed to ring them.  The helpline number is 0808 808 00 00.

I hope you don't have to wait too much longer to be seen.

Wishing you the best of luck with your appointment when you finally have it.

Best wishes

Daisy53

When I had what GP said was a non urgent lump in my armpit I wasn't prepared to wait so I said I'd go private .  However I  didn't need to as they saw me urgently.  It was nothing sinister (this was 18 years ago ).  Is going private for mammogram an option for you ? 

Ask for an emergency GP appointment , get them to contact the breast unit and an emergency referral. If this gets you no where write to your MP and contact PALS. Also write to the hospital chief executive. If your breast unit is in a hospital that has a Macmillan of r similar centre call in to see them. They can be very very helpful.

Hopefully it will all turn out to be fine but you need to know that NOW and if not ok get treatment started. You are not being unreasonable. Did the breast unit explain why you were taken off the urgent list? Does your GP know this and why it was?

Good luck x

I would also make sure you reference that you have immediate relatives who have suffered with breast cancer and there may well be a genetic link (not to scare you, but they should not be making you wait for 6 weeks - it should be the 2WW referral in my opinion but I don’t know if Scotland works to the same rules). 

Around here there is a two week max for an appointment after any referral to the breast clinic. You’ve already waited 6 weeks so 9 is unacceptable. My friend in Grantham waited 5 and they acknowledged it was 3 weeks late even then but she was seen. I think you should contact your gp and get them to contact the unit again, put in a formal complaint if necessary and yes contact your mp if you don’t get the correct response and PALS. Good luck with it, you don’t need it on top of the worry. Can I also offer some reassurance that breast cancer generally does not grow so fast in 6 weeks as to make a huge difference so please don’t have this mental image of a fast growing thing in you because it’ll send your anxiety through the roof xx

Just to add to Anna12345's note: we don't have PALS here in Scotland but Citizen's Advice offers an equivalent service:

https://www.careinfoscotland.scot/topics/your-rights/patient-advice-and-support-service-pass/

I know it's hard but do ring your GP back, ring the breast clinic back and if necessary just keep them on the phone, keep being confused about why it is taking so long and keep repeating that you've already waited several weeks. They do want to help you so will get something sorted if they can, but sometimes we as patients have to be very assertive.

Good luck, power to you and please do keep posting here.

Thank you so much Daisy53 I’ll give that a try 

I have never considered that actually but I will look into it because I feel like I need some peace of mind. Thanks for your advice :) 

Thank you so much we don’t know why it was demoted to non urgent but we were told it was covid and staff shortages which I felt was a bit strange.

I called the doctors today who confirmed it is still down as urgent with them which is weird.

Thank you I did stress this to them but they told me it didn’t matter? (The breast clinic) which I felt was a bit strange