[chrislmelb]

Tonight is the night 5 years ago that I got a call from my breast surgeon to let me know that he was surprised to find my lump was a lymph node with breast cancer attached. As usual I had let the call go to the machine at 8.30pm, but when I heard JC say "Hello this is JC I am looking for MRS Lee" I jumped up and ran for the phone. Then I went into my room and he explained it to me. I remember feeling that intense heat/electric like shock, and had to sit down. I know people think it is bad being told over the phone but he wanted to get me in earlier than planned, like 7.45 the next morning. He had actually spent quite a bit of time trying different combinations of my phone number as the hospital sticker was incorrect! Of course they couldn't see any sign of the primary so I had to have core biopsy later in the week to try to find the primary tumour. After a bit of guessing and 4 cores they did find it but of course, as I was to find out further down the track, they still couldn't see its boundaries. So partial mastectomy and clearance followed by a wide local excision, which was then followed by a mastectomy. Of course that was the easy bit and there was much more treatment to follow.
It all seems so long ago now but still such a big part of my life. It is not something you just forget. I now feel pretty confident that I will get to see my daughter go to high school in 2012.
Take care
Christine