A personal account of the author's breast cancer journey, from initial discovery to the diagnosis of bone and lymph node metastasis.
I haven’t written a personal column for around a year. There have been difficult days. I’ve also had one of the best days of my life. One night in October last year I found a piece of rough skin, not a lump, underneath my left nipple. I dutifully went to a doctor and was referred to the Breast Clinic in the Mater public hospital. They did lots of mammograms and an ultrasound, and a biopsy, and that same morning, a surgeon told me they had found several tumours in my left breast.
I was shocked and upset, of course I was, but I also thought “ah, so now it’s my turn”. I have several friends who’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer. As is often routine, I was sent for some more scans and on December 8th I was told the cancer had spread to my bones and my lymph nodes. Things were different now. I moved from the Breast Clinic to be treated in the main oncology department in the Mater. The shock was deeper. The shock led me to my fridge where I stared at a chilled bottle of posh white wine and hoped that pouring it down my gullet before hiding under the duvet would make it all go away. That’s when a wise internal voice told me wine was not a good path
BREAST CANCER HEALTH ONCOLOGY DIAGNOSIS PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
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