Numb and Shocked

Hi Juxie

Welcome to the forum and sorry to hear that you have been diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer. The reason they say that you can go on your holiday is that it can take a couple of weeks to get your treatment organised. I went on holiday for two weeks a week after I was diagnosed two years ago, my surgeon to.d me that it would take that time to get my chemo organised. I found that the holiday helped me to forget what was ahead of me most of the time. I started treatment a month and a half after I was diagnosed and it made no difference to my outcome. I’m currently in remission.

Enjoy your holiday and best of luck with your treatment when it starts.

Best wishes

Daisy53

Hi Julie, I hope you are managing to enjoy your holiday. Apologies for the long post but thought you might like to hear about someone else's experience. I found my lump back in April and was quickly diagnosed with tnbc stage 2/3. I was given the same schedule as you. Chemo, surgery then radiotherapy and was also offered the genetic test which came back negative. I had 6 rounds of Chemo which thankfully I managed to get through without feeling absolutely awful. Don't get me wrong I didn't completely escape the side effects but I know they could have been much worse. I chose not to have a cold cap to help preserve the hair on my head and chose to treat myself to some nice headwear instead. I have tried to stay as positive as possible throughout despite what you read about tnbc on the internet and I think that has helped. I just take things one day at a time. 

On 18th October I was scheduled for surgery. They decided to insert a magseed prior to surgery as a guide to find the tumour. Unfortunately when I went to have it done the radiologist spotted something on the MRI that I had done the week previous (some swollen tissue and a swollen node) so rather than insert the magseed she did some biopsies. It was a bit of a worrying time especially so close to surgery but thankfully they were benign. I had just recently had my Covid Vaccine and I had read that it can have an affect on your nodes but as they say better to air on the side of caution. 

My magseed was eventually put in as close to the original biopsy clip as the radiologist thought necessary. My tumour itself wasn't very clear on ultrasound at this point due to shrinkage from the Chemo. Anyway surgery went ahead as planned. I had a sentinel node biopsy in the morning and a wide local excision later that day. I didn't need a drain just a dressing and went home the next morning. I behaved myself afterwards and did my daily exercises and the breast care team said I was healing well, but when my pathology results came back my surgeon was not entirely happy. He hadn't managed to remove the original clip and the margin of tissue around the tumour that he did remove in his opinion was not quite enough. Although it was only a very small area he did not want to risk leaving it and those cells mutating. So, 2 weeks after my first surgery I was re admitted for a reexcision of medical margin. This time they sent me home with a Pico 7 dressing which applies negative pressure to the wound in order to help it heal and prevent infection. I wore it for a week and when I went to see the breast care nurse yesterday she took it off and said that once again I was healing well and that if it continues next week will be my last visit to the wound clinic. Not sure what my schedule for radiotherapy will be but hopefully I will find out soon. 

It's a worrying time when you are going through treatment for cancer and there are ups and downs along the way but please try to stay positive and take each day as it comes. I hope you have a good team at the hospital caring for you and that you have a good support network of family and friends at home to help you through this difficult time. 

If you should ever need to vent no matter how silly it may seem I am here. It is important that we support each other.

I wish you every success with your treatment.

Sending lots of love and healing thoughts your way.

 Marion

Hi Marion 

Thank you so much for replying. I'm so sorry you are going through this too. Life sucks sometimes. My holiday was amazing. Definitely needed it. Now back to reality, I'm having my port fitted on Saturday and starting chemo next week hopefully. I just feel lost  

Hi Dasiy53

Thank you so much for replying. I'm glad I went on holiday. Even though there was 3 of us on it ... I was able to just be me and ignore Brenda the breat lump for a bit. Back to reality now though x

I see from your later post that you are about to have your port fitted and start chemo. I hope it goes well for you. I have TNBC which came out of the blue from a routine mammogram. So far I have had surgery (WLE), 4 rounds of EC, 12 weeks of Paclitaxel, and radiotherapy. I will have a further procedure next week for a lesion on my liver (cancer unfortunately has been the gift that keeps on giving for me). Chemo wasn’t as bad as I feared. I have blogged my experiences, hope they are a help. community.macmillan.org.uk/.../a-trip-with-triple-negative-breast-cancer

Thank you so much for replying. I was told last night there's a patch on my liver so I'm having an ultra sound to rule it out x

I hope it turns out to be nothing