BRAVE

As a man, I have to be honest that shamefully there is only one vision that we have of boobs. I’m sorry, but if any man denies it then they are either lying or a doctor (the fact that I’m sat here struggling trying to work out whether to call them boobs, breasts or boobies shows how immature we really are). We always hear about lumps & bumps etc but we never really get too involved in the detail. If there’s ever a segment on the TV that is going to show ladies how to check for lumps, then men really only tune in to see if they are actually going to show a naked breast on prime time TV. They don’t actually pay attention to what is being said. If, however, it suddenly changes to a segment about checking for lumps in the testicle then all bets are off and the TV gets turned over.

We had a call from the hospital yesterday and Sam is booked in to get the clips attached to the tumour on Monday morning. This only involves her having a local anaesthetic so she doesn’t have to stay in (I’m still not sure how they attach the clips but I guess we’ll find out on Monday). We haven’t got a date yet for the CT scan but I’m sure we’ll find out soon because they want to do it before the chemotherapy starts on the 21st February.

I never realised how many women struggle with their breasts. When Sam was in hospital after her node biopsy there was a lovely lady (who was only slightly older than Sam) who was in the opposite bed. She would always suffer from big cysts when it was her period. They would always reduce afterwards, but they would get so big she was left with really loose skin. She was in hospital not only to have all the cysts cut out but also to have the excess skin cut away too. She had suffered for years but carried the pain and discomfort so bravely that no one would ever have noticed that anything was wrong. We were told by Jill that we would be shocked at how many people we would know who would have suffered from breast cancer in the past but kept it a secret from the people around them. There will be people who we will have known for years, or see everyday who would now confide and share their experiences with us because of Sam’s Cancer diagnosis. I now know of at least 3 people who I’ve known for years offer their support to Sam because they themselves have been through the same thing. I would never have known it. Not everyone has chemotherapy when diagnosed with cancer (another thing I didn’t know), some people just have the surgery and then radiotherapy so therefore never lose their hair whilst being treated.

Sam found her lump when she was trying to breastfeed Charlie. It’s only because she wasn’t producing the milk properly and trying to get him to latch on that she noticed it. She originally thought it was just a blocked milk duct and that it would disperse. She then completely forgot about it. It wasn’t until around 5 weeks later on NYE that she remembered it and told me. Even after finding it and going to the doctor she told me that if she recreated the advised way to check your breast for lumps then she still couldn’t feel it. What scares her is she doesn’t know how long it had been there for. It’s only when you pushed hard against her breast bone that you noticed it.

Please, if you feel something unusual in your breast (and this can be for men as well as women) then don’t delay in going to see a doctor. You would never be wasting anyone’s time by getting it checked. Even if you’re not sure what it is you should still get it checked. When Sam found her lump it wasn’t at all what I would have expected a lump to feel like, but then, that’s my fault for never paying attention during the segments on TV.