Hi everyone,

Been reading the group for a couple of weeks and today decided that my story
might be worth telling, it would help me to feel better at this point to
think I may be able to help someone else in some small way, so here
goes........

My name is Jen, I live in London am a single parent to a fabulous 13 year
old Son. This whole story started in November 1989 when I was interupted at
work to be told the devestating news that my Mum had just been diagnosed
with breast cancer, I was 19, Mum was 44. We were dumbstruck, this kind of
thing didn't happen to us!

Mum and Dad had recently divorced and Mum was just about to move into her
own flat, which happened to be downstairs from the flat my boyfriend and I
had just bought as our first home, so it was useful in a way not to be too
far away from her when she was going through all her treatment. I always
knew that life would never be the same for us again, I was so traumatised by
the thought of losing her that I had to have councelling even then.

The cancer was 5cms and 2 Lymph nodes were positive, so chemo' and radio
were on the cards. She managed very well with both after the lumpectomy and
was involved with the trial of Tamoxifen- although she was in the group that
recieved steroids for 5 years. I was with her every step of the way and we
became very close as a result.

Life began to return to normal over the years with only the occasional blip
where she would phone me in the middle of the night panic stricken because
of a new pain, it was my job to sort out wether there was really anything to
worry about or not and up until 2003 there wasn't,

Mum started to have pain in the top of her back and one hip- as usual I gave
her my reassurances that as it had been so long since the cancer it was not
likely to be anything to worry about. My denial was reinforced by our family
Doctor who saw Mum 5 or 6 times over the next couple of months and said
she'd ''pulled a muscle'' or ''ripped a muscle'' but continued to prescribe
ever increasing supplies of stronger and stronger painkillers, which seemed
to be having no effect.

During this time I was doing everything possible to pretend it wasn't
happening. I knew she had bone mets, I knew what that meant. I'd divorced my
Husband by then and lived on my own with my Son in a ground floor place
which meant as soon as Mum came out of hospital, when the penny finally
dropped on the Doctor's heads, she was able to move in with us and luckily I
was well enough to look after her (I have MS) I am so grateful for that time
with her- it wasn't easy but we managed to keep our sense of humour. She
died on 27th October 2003. I can't really write about that now, maybe I'll
save that for another day.

Now I'm 36 and the weekend before this last Christmas I had an itch in bed
and found my own Breast Cancer. For me there was no doubt, I knew exactly
what I had to do. Straight to the Doctor who I laughed at when she tried to
reassure me, it seemed absurd that anyone would try. Then when I saw the
Surgeon (the same one who operated on Mum 15 years before) I told him that I
wasn't treating this lightly, I would like a double mastectomy please.  The
cancer turned out to be 1.8cms grade 3 (or is that stage?) 1 lymph node and
invading the blood vessels. So I've just had my first Chemo' (FEC) and just
started to lose my hair yesterday. I'll also be having 3 weeks of radio and
Tamoxifen for the 5 years.

I guess the whole point of this post is to encourage everyone to not be
frightened to make difficult decisions, they are easy when you put them in
perspective. My friends are devestated that I'm going to lose my hair on top
of losing my boobs (so to speak!) I might be in denial again here but none
of that seems very important!! Also you are all doing the right thing by
absorbing all the information you can, because you are always your own best
advocate and will feel much better in years to come knowing you have done
everything possible to help yourself.

I hope all of this doesn't sound too grim, it wasn't my intention, I fully
intend to beat this the best way I know how- by laughing heartilly ;-)

Jen x