Is the waiting putting me at risk?

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Hello everyone,

I have just turned 50 and was recently diagnosed with a grade 2 invasive cancer. In my first ultrasound it looked like one of my lymph nodes was inflamed so I had a biopsy on that as well as the lump in my breast.

I had to wait a hellish 3 long weeks for the results confirmed the breast lump was cancer. However the lymph node biopsy was insufficient so I had to wait over a week for another one to be done. I’ve now been told it could take up to 3 weeks for those results to come back.

My consultant said I should hopefully have surgery within 4 weeks from my original meeting with her when I received the diagnosis. However, I can’t have the surgery (lumpectomy) until the lymph results are here so they know if they should remove all the lymph nodes or just a few to biopsy again. I’m worried that I could have had a total of a 5 or 6 week delay waiting for the biopsy to be done again and then the extended time it’s taking for the results. I just want this thing taken out of me and I’m scared that these extra few weeks could be putting me at more risk.

It’s now 2 months since I first went to my gp when I found the lump and it’s still in me. How long has everyone else had to wait for the surgery? Should I be concerned?

I am due to have radiotherapy after the surgery so I’m desperate to get cracking with the surgery and treatment to get rid of this.

I’d be grateful to hear of other people’s experiences of treatment times please.

Thank you x

GRANNY59 over 2 years ago

Hi AndiM welcome to the forum and sorry to hear how worried that you are. The waiting around for results and tests is just awful and we can all relate to that as we have all been there as well.

First things first, it is usually a 2 week wait to get to the breast clinic and it looks like that has happened for you.

It sounds like they didn't get enough of a biopsy on the lymph nodes to confirm or rule out anything hence the 2nd one.

They need to confirm the lymph nodes before surgery so that they can plan for what they need to do, eg 1 lymph node or more than that. It may be that if more than 1 is affected chemo may be suggested but that's only a possibility and not a definite.

If you are worried why not give the clinic a call and explain what you have said here and ask them when they think surgery will happen for you?

Evajean over 2 years ago

So sorry you are going through this.At my first breast clinic appt after GP referral the Dr examined me and said he would arrange for ultra sound and mammogram, but not that day. He said he didn’t feel anything untoward but booked the scans to be on the safe side. I had to then wait 8 weeks for mammogram/us all the time thinking I was ok. Unfortunately they found a small tumour classed as Grade 2 after biopsy. Things moved reasonably quickly after that.I was booked in for lumpectomy and sentinel node biopsy four weeks later. So I just wanted to say that although I had a long wait initially, everything has turned out ok. I start radiotherapy in three weeks. It is frustrating and scary waiting for appointments because you just imagine the tumour growing out of hand. I remember thinking as I was going down to theatre that they would find the tumour had spread during the four weeks between scan and op but it hadn’t. Mine was Stage 1 invasive breast cancer. Hope this helps to reassure you a little.

Evajean x

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Is the waiting putting me at risk?