What does follow-up look like?

So what happens now? What does follow-up look like now that I’ve largely been signed off by the consultants who’ve been treating me for varying lengths of time since my breast cancer diagnosis one year ago this very week?

At around the one-year anniversary of my surgery, in mid-December, I’ll have a mammogram and an ultrasound scan on the good boob (if you’ve had cancer in one breast you’re at increased risk of getting it in the other) and an ultrasound scan on the reconstruction (there’s no point in having a mammogram as there’s no, or next to no, breast tissue there). The plan is that I’ll have those tests anually for at least five years.

I’ll have my next and third round of the bone hardening drug, zoledronic acid, in September. I’ve changed from having that every three months to every six and the plan is to continue on that basis for the next couple of years. I’m on letrozole, daily hormone therapy. Letrozole lowers oestrogen levels in the body and so increases your risk of developing osteoporosis. The bone hardening drug is to counteract that. It’s also been shown to reduce the risk of the cancer coming back in post-menopausal women like me.

I’ll have a bone density scan once I’ve been taking letrozole for two years to measure the effect letrozole has had on my bones so far. The scan I had before starting hormone therapy showed I had strong bones to start with, which is good.

And that’s it.

Or is it? This follow-up plan only works, of course, as long as there’s no recurrence. If that happens, all bets are off, as you’ll know from posts I’ve already written. In between your formal follow-up scans and whatever other ongoing treatments and/or appointments you have, you need to stay aware of the symptoms of secondary breast cancer, not panic at every ache or pain but get any worrying signs checked… and hope like hell that the concern that led you to go and get checked was misplaced and that you are in fact still cancer free.

 

 

Starting to feel free again

The consultants who’ve essentially been in control of my life for the past seven months have done what they needed to do in terms of treating me and are now starting to sign me off. I’m beginning to feel independent again. It’s a good feeling.

I was at the clinic this past Monday for physio but before that I hadn’t been there for a whole two weeks. A fortnight is not so long in the broader scheme of things, but I don’t think I’d had such a long period without an appointment or treatment related to my breast cancer since July last year.

I also saw the consultant breast surgeon this week for a three-month follow-up so I did in fact have two appointments this week. Nonetheless, I no longer feel I’m tied to the place.

People are warned that they may feel abandoned when their hospital-based treatment (chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy) finishes as they’ve got used to all the appointments and treatment and to having people caring for them. I haven’t any sense of abandonment – yet? – perhaps because for me there was no sudden end to things. Most people walk out of their final radiotherapy session and that’s it, but not me. I finished radiotherapy on the last Friday in February (“…3, 2, 1 and relax. Congratulations!”) but was back almost every day the following week (It’s not over ’til it’s over) as I’d had a bad skin reaction to treatment and was having the dressings changed on an almost daily basis. And there have been plenty of other appointments since then.

I’m still having physiotherapy on my operated side and there will be various other appointments over the next few weeks and months, but it’s good that things are tailing off. Feeling free again has its own challenges but, grateful as I am to everyone who’s been and who continues to be involved in my treatment and care, I can safely say I’m happy finally to feel no longer tethered to what has sometimes over the past seven months felt like a second home.