2026 had clearly decided that a cancer diagnosis wasn't enough for me this year. You know how we all try to encourage our kids to share? Well Erin went above and beyond and very kindly shared her chickenpox with me at the end of February! Apparently I never had it as a kid and I can confirm - it is utter HELL as an adult! I had a fever and was absolutely COVERED in spots and Shaun ended up having to call NHS24 and take me in to Kings Cross because I was that bad. I was given antivirals for the chickenpox, throat spray because the spots were in my throat and I couldn't eat, and antibiotics for a chest infection. It took weeks for all the spots to go away and annoyingly I ended up with a few wee scars from them. I didn't realise at the time that I would have a much bigger scar to worry about!
 |
| Me at my worst |
So after a couple of weeks of being ill and spotty, on 10 March 2026 we traipsed back to Ninewells to the Breast Clinic to get my mammogram and ultrasound. The mammogram was first, and honestly? Not anywhere near as bad as some people have said. It wasn't painful in the slightest, it was just an uncomfortable angle but it only takes a few seconds. After a short wait we were then taken into a wee room for another ultrasound. This is where they informed me that the mammogram had actually picked some things up so they needed to have a look at them on the ultrasound. They ended up taking 4(!) more biopsies and inserting markers beside the original lump for when I would potentially get the lumpectomy.
After a couple of weeks the results were in so it was back up to Ninewells to see Mr Pitsinis. He told us that there was a second tumour which was also Grade 3 Invasive Ductal Carcinoma and hormone receptor positive but this one was actually HER2 positive (the first one was HER2 negative). Not only that but there was a third suspicious area that they only managed to graze the surface of with the biopsy needle, it didn't come back as cancerous but Mr Pitsinis was confident that if they were to go in deeper they would find more cancer. At this point I still wanted to go with the lumpectomy option so he said I would need to come back for another biopsy on that suspicious area to see if that was indeed cancerous.
He also said I would need to start on Endocrine treatment immediately to bridge the gap from then until surgery so I had to get monthly Lupron injections and take Exemestane tablets daily and both of them together essentially put me into the menopause (that was fun). This was because the tumours were hormone receptor positive so they needed to stop me from producing Oestrogen so that they wouldn't get any bigger or spread. The good news at that point was that there was no evidence of it spreading to my lymph nodes so if that was the case then it would just be a blast of radiotherapy after the surgery and I would be on medication for the next 5 years.
So I was sent home to await the appointment for the next biopsy.
Comments
Post a Comment