On 3/24/2008 savithri wrote:
hi guys, er sorry am new to all this i need help and advice. litlle bit of history here, i had cancer in the breast both side in 93 said it was easy to remove they did and reconstructed it with fat from tummy. they removed both my breasts. two years later due to the fault of the surgeon he had left two stray cancer cells to which he admitted, two 10mm lumps were removed in 96 then 99. i have been fine after that during which time i also had radiotherpay and chemotherapy.i have have early onset menopause due to the removal of the womb and ovaries that was not cancer it was during childbrith. so i have arthrtis and osterporosis has well. but genrally i am fine . last october i fell over in the bathroom on my bum dont laugh but my spine hurt lots for about two days then i was fine. but like a fool i opened my mouth during my routine checkup at the hoispital in january this year and the doc said oh lets do a bone scan, they then say yes there are two marks, one my spine the other t4 or something like that.i feel they taking whats in my file and going along with it without listening to me, my x-ray is fine my bloods are fine they havenot done any needle biopsy or anything of that sort. they are adammant its cancer and wont listen,want me to start bisphonates and exmemstate which is a hormone surrppeseant. is this bone secondries or primaries because i have no breast cancer. and what is the progonsis are there new treaments available.. ihave a daughter, will like to see her grow up, sorry for bad spelling.
Dear Friend:
Go to your doctor and get a referral to the best oncologist in your area. The most notorious cancers known to metastise to the spine or other areas of the body, are breast, lung, prostate cancers. That's the top 3!
Do not take any chances, and don't procrastinate. Be proactive. I had lung cancer and had my left lung removed, but NO ONE told me anything about lung cancer metastising...so now, here I am just 8 months after surgery, diagnosed with cancer of the spine.
I found out more about my cancer and the fact it could metastise to chondrosarcoma in people of my age group from my computer, than ANYTHING my oncologist told me in any face-to-face consultation. In fact, he told me after my surgery, that chemotherapy or radiation was not necessary as a preventative treatment option, since we caught the cancer early enough. My chances of survival and non-reoccurance were 70%, with or without chemo. Had I known about the metastastic complexities of lung cancer, I would have taken the chemo as a preventative measure and most likely NOT be in the situation I am in today.
You are the patient and YOU must decide for yourself what is and is not important in the decision-making process for your well being and treatment. Take charge, take control, and whatever you do, DO NOT let anyone use some out-dated computer-generated document that generalizes statistics for survival rates! You are special, you are an individual and those 'stats' can't rate your individual make-up. Get out there and take control of your situation.
God Speed - (and who cares if you can't spell!)
Ms. Katie