I can't pretend I am going to keep a blog (so last century anyway) or even post updates but I'm writing this because I want to let people know and I don't want to post on FB where I go to get away from all this, I hope that's ok with you.

On the 23rd of June I was diagnosed with breast cancer having found a lump. I didn't go to the GP until my stupidity hit fear of what it was over the head and I made an emergency appointment. I can't fault the NHS, within 10 days I was at the breast clinic at my local hospital, being examined, ultrasounded, and mammogramed, nothing showed up so they biopsied me. All the way along everyone told me they were just being cautious, the lump didn't feel, look or behave like cancer, but they didn't know what it was. Another 10 days and I had the biopsy results and talk of a lumpectomy, that was its own shock. I also had an appointment for an MRI because that is more sensitive and shows up more.

In some ways I have been waiting for this, I have a family history which drove the 'caution', but that doesn't make a lot of difference to how you process something like this. The day I went for the MRI results I had a 4pm appointment with the consultant and a 3pm appointment to ultrasound my lymph nodes. I walked into radiology to see my MRI results on the screen and talk of more radical surgery. It was logical, given the radiologist was about to biopsy me based on those scans, but I was on my own, I don't need anyone with me for an ultrasound. My husband arrived at 3.30 in time to see the Dr so then I had to share the news with him, it was all overwhelming. The Dr then had nothing to tell us so I brought out my list of questions complied from the info they gave me at my last appointment. She told me I was racing ahead. I told her that my way of managing anything is to inform myself, so I wanted to know the answers even if in the end they were not related to my treatment. I didn't get them, I got hustled out of the room instead with reassurances that I would be involved in planning my treatment, I won't be, I will be told what is best and of course they are the experts and I will do what they say.

At this point I do of course recognise that I wasn't just upset about the Dr but about the news but I did wonder why they gave me all that information (I deliberately didn't read the internet) if I wasn't allowed to ask about it. Being upset I just wanted to go home but managed to let myself instead be shepherded into a quiet room by the cancer nurse who made it a lot less quiet by talking to me as if I was a partially deaf 3 year old. She's the 2nd nurse to patronise us and now I have learnt two things; be prepared for 'bad' news at any given moment not just when you might be expecting it and prepared for it, and follow your instincts - if you want to go home to be upset just go home.  

Having been screened for about the last 30 years, I've had scares before, and so I shouldn't have been surprised that the MRI showed up more areas to investigate. It is just the way my tissue looks sometimes and they may be nothing. Another 4 biopsies and an sentinel node aspiration will tell us more. If not there will be an MRI biopsy. It changes the nature of surgery and makes post surgery treatment options more likely to be chemo. Those results are next week and it is amazing how you can wish to know what you are dealing with at the same time as never wanting that day to come.

I am in a land where I am given appointments, no consultation about time or date, because "you need to put yourself first now" but that means just becoming a patient. It doesn't take account of the me who loves my job, who just got a job she really loves more than anything, and there being anything other than cancer in my life. There are more losses involved in this than a part of my body being removed via surgery. Oh and yes, I'm frightened of being that lady in a shop with no hair who scares everyone with the thoughts of cancer.

If you are anything like me, glancing thoughts about cancer and especially breast cancer will have been about how treatment has improved, survival rates are high, and how common it is in some kind of order. Turns out that doesn't really make a lot of difference. I am in a land where people tell me I can beat this thing or I can fight it and to stay positive. Cancer is not a battle to be fought or won, it is an physiological condition and my state of mind will have no impact upon the outcomes. "Using the battle metaphor implies that if a patient fights hard enough, smart enough, and/or long enough, he or she will be able to win the war." After all, we don't really think the ones who died just didn't put up enough of a fight. 

For now it is a waiting game and limbo is always challenging, I'm hoping for results next Thursday, but there is likely to be another scan and more biopsies because the radiologist didn't know if she'd got the right areas of tissue. That's not confidence inspiring. All I actually know is that I will be in surgery 18th or 20th July and I presume that means there are two different lists for different types of surgery. In the meantime it has been time to face the difference between being the person with the diagnosis and their partner, family or friends. My world is largely dominated by fear and distracting myself from it. My husband's is more pragmatic and practical, at the moment, which is cold comfort but it's his way of coping. Everyone has been kind and supportive and colleagues have been very respectful about not talking to me about it at work, at my request, there just has to be some normal somewhere.

I know that my outcomes are probably quite good but there have been days when I have been very frightened and days when I enjoy all the things I usually do. The laughter doesn't stop just because sometimes there are tears. It is a roller coaster which is not helped by knowing I won't be paid for very much of the time I can't work. It was just a little premature at 50 to think that we needed to have all those things paid off like mortgages and cars which some people have and some people don't, we thought we had another 5 years or so. A long lost rich relative would be very convenient at this point, look out for me on eBay in the meantime.