So as you know from previous posts, my mum had breats cancer at the beginning of the year. This was her second time around; her first time was when I was just a baby, forty years ago. At that time, she had a lumpectomy, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. This time around, she had a full mastectomy but didn't need to have any further treatment. They took lymph nodes from her armpit and found them to be clear. They also tested her for the BRCA1 gene, which would of course have implications for me and her sister, but she doesn't have the gene. But because of her history, they consider me to be at moderate risk of breast cancer, and because of that, I am entitled to have mammograms as I'm over the age of forty.
I had to see my GP to get the referral, but the appointment came through very quickly. I also spoke to one of the breast cancer nurses, who said that they would like me to take tamoxifen for five years as a preventative. There are pros and cons to this medicine, and the information I was sent from the hospital was incredibly clear and included a decision tree to help me make up my mind. This did include changing my anti depressant because Prozac interferes with tamoxifen apparently. As I'm writing this I'm still waiting to start my new anti depressant, and feeling pretty rotten after coming off Prozac, but I think it will be the best for me. Tamoxifen apparently has a whole host of side effects which mirror menopause, so that will be fun. I still think it's worth it because of my cancer risk.
As a side note, my mum hasn't been that well after her mastectomy. She got a seroma which is where the body keeps filling up with fluid, and she kept having to go back to the hospital to get it drained. The consultant kept doing other things to help healing, and eventually she just had like two blisters which needed to heal. These FINALLY healed at the end of August. As I'm writing this she still has to go back to the hospital to be discharged and to see the prosthetic person so she can get that fitted. As cancer goes, she's had it not that bad. But it's still been terrible and stressful.
I'm still waiting for the results of my mammogram but I thought I would write about the experience. Lee wasn't at home on the day and the parking at Barnsley hospital is terrible so a friend took me and my mum picked me up. I was waiting longer for my mum than I was for the mammogram, which was great! I was familiar with the part of the hospital, too, because it's really close to the gynaecology unit, where I've been a lot and where I actually was only a couple of weeks before my mammogram. I went down, checked in, changed my address with the hospital, and sat down. My name and the names of two other people were called, and we followed a nurse into another waiting area. That's where I took this photo. One of the other people went into a room, and I was then called in. I actually went through this door on the left - which was weird because I thought it was just a cubicle, but behind two doors was a whole other room, where the mammogram machine was.
The medical person (radiographer?) told me to undress my top half, so I did, taking off my dress and my bra, and leaving myself with just my leggings on. I have big boobs, which I've heard is actually better for mammograms. The radiographer positioned first my right boob, and then more the nipple, and then the left breast, and the nipple. I had to sort of lean my bum out so that my boob was flat on the plate, and then there was a squashy thing that came down which wasn't pleasant but wasn't very painful either. In all, the procedure took maybe five minutes tops and very soon I was putting my clothes back on and getting out!
In all I want to say, it isn't THAT unpleasant. It didn't hurt and it didn't leave me in any pain. It's worth the five minutes of mild discomfort to screen for cancer instead of letting it grow. As a reminder, my mum's second cancer was found on her routine mammogram last November. The tumour was THREE millimetres long, barely the length of a grain of rice, and it was quickly found and treated. Way back in 1984, her tumour was 7-8 cm long, which is SO big in comparison.
Have your mammograms, and if you have a family history of breast cancer, press for screening too!
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