Surprise chemotherapy

Hi Chezlovelly 

I am sorry you are getting conflicting messages about chemotherapy. I have a different type of breast cancer (tnbc) but was also told chemo would depend on the results from surgery. In practice I went back for my surgery results and from there was referred to an oncology consultant to discuss the benefits and risks of chemo. The oncologists are the experts in this and the surgeons will leave them to make the decision. 

Targeted treatment is often offered for HER2 positive cancer. This Macmillan link details the drugs involved and states they may be given alongside chemo. That has been the experience of people I know with HER positive cancer who have had neo-adjuvant treatment (ie before surgery) but I don’t know anyone with your cancer who had surgery first. It’s likely you will also be offered hormone blocking drugs.

 https://www.macmillan.org.uk/cancer-information-and-support/treatments-and-drugs/targeted-therapies-for-breast-cancer

Thank you for your reply, I will take a look. Its all very daunting and scary x

It’s always best not to get ahead of yourself. Even if you do have chemo it’s quite doable for most people. I have had chemo twice, lost my hair twice, no one would know now. 

Hi, I have a different type of cancer, however I had Lumpectomy and was told I needed chemotherapy plus radiotherapy.

My immediate thoughts with chemotherapy was "I needed to channel Halle Berry who had really short hair in a film (can't remember which) and then cut it even shorter (almost bald) for an award ceremony and she looked stunning!

I thought "I can do that too!"

I decided to own the look - my lovely, now, son in law actually volunteered and did shave the remainder of my hair off.

It is best to stop, think, breathe and actually wait for all results and facts.

Then once you know exactly what is happening and your care plan is in front of you, then you can learn "to own it" - don't try to fight it because you need to go with the flow of treatment and let the lovely, surgeons, doctors, oncologists and amazing nurses care for you.

So ok your hair falls out - it isn't the end of the earth because it will grow back and people will see your beautiful facial bone structure.

Try and not overthink things - try to go with the flow.

Gentle hugs to you x

I’m going through Chemo at the moment due to my stage 3 breast cancer HER2 positive and my hair was my pride and joy. I was terrified of loosing it but when it started to fall out quite quickly I wasn’t as upset as I thought I would be. I shaved my hair off and wore lovely bandanas and as Rusty53x said I learned to embrace my new look. Loosing my hair at the end of the day is a small price to pay to fight cancer and it will grow back in time. I’m still shocked at myself that I wasn’t as upset as I thought I’d be. I have to get 6 months of Chemo then an operation followed by another 3 months of Chemo or Radiation. Try not to stress that much about loosing your hair and no your not ridiculous feeling that way, I felt the same way as you but it’s not as bad as you think.

Thank you. I know i am getting ahead of myself. I like to be in control of situations and obviously I am not with this