In the beginning there was Breast Screen

 After reading someone else's cancer blog, I thought it might be interesting to start my own. Mind you, I've never been much good at sticking to anything, but I thought this might be a first time that I do, and surprise myself.

Around five weeks ago I went for my usual breast x-ray with BreastScreen. I didn't expect anything out of the ordinary, and I have been having these scans for as long as I was eligible for them.

However, I got a call back. Asking me to go to Queanbeyan Breast Screen for a further mammogram, this time a 3D one. Assured that it was probably nothing, but to make sure, they were doing a more detailed one. In Bega, they only have the 2D screen, which is adequate for most purposes.

Well, off I went. Why Queanbeyan? Because they don't have the machine in Bega, which is near my home town. As an aside, Bega has a beautiful new hospital - which is very underequipped in staff, facilities and machinery, so people often have to travel to Canberra or Sydney for diagnosis, specialist appointments, and treatment.

In BreastScreen Queanbeyan I was met by a specialist nurse who told me what would happen - first I would have the 3D mammogram, and an ultrasound. This would be reviewed by the breast cancer doctor, and then if necessary, they would do an ultrasound-guided needle biopsy.  I had the mammogram - felt that by the attitude of the technician that there was something there. Was then taken in to see the breast cancer doctor who told me they have found a small shadow, and needed to do the needle biopsy. I was shite-scared of course - mainly afraid of the pain. But to my surprise, it was relatively painless.

The following week, back in Bega, had an appointment with Dr AJ Collins at the hospital. A charming and dapper man with Heinrich Himmler glasses, but fortunately not his manner. He explained I had triple negative breast cancer. A tiny lump in the milk glands of my left breast. Next step to be removal of that lump and two sentinel lymph nodes. I'd never heard of triple negative breast cancer, but apparently it is negative to

• oestrogen receptor
• progesterone receptor
• protein HER2,

meaning that it doesn't use these to grow, meaning that the drugs used to treat most breast cancers, which block these receptors, don't work for triple negative.

I'm almost 71, which means I'm a bit of an outlier, because Triple Negative usually hits

• people under 40 years of age
• people who have inheritied BRCA gene mutation (particularly BRCA1)
• and have not reached menopause.

I will be asking my surgeon if I can be tested for the gene mutation, because it may be relevant for my family to know and have themselves tested.

Before the operation, I had to again head up to Canberra and have a PET scan. Not sure what that was for, but fortunately covered by Medicare. So far I've been lucky and haven't had to pay anything out of pocket - thank god for our medicare system.

Next episode:  the operation.................