The Woman's World - Breast Cancer

Breast cancer symptoms vary widely — from lumps to swelling to skin changes — and many breast cancers have no obvious symptoms at all. Symptoms that are similar to those of breast cancer may be the result of non-cancerous conditions like infection or a cyst.

Breast self - exam should be part of your monthly health care routine, and you should visit your doctor if you experience breast changes. If you're over 40 or at a high risk for the disease, you should also have an annual mammogram and physical exam by a doctor. The earlier breast cancer is found and diagnosed, the better your chances of beating it. The actual process of diagnosis can take weeks and involve many different kinds of tests. Waiting for results can feel like a lifetime. The uncertainty stinks. But once you understand your own unique “big picture,” you can make better decisions. You and your doctors can formulate a treatment plan tailored just for you.

Initially, breast cancer may not cause any symptoms. A lump may be too small for you to feel or to cause any unusual changes you can notice on your own. Often, an abnormal area turns up on a screening mammogram (x-ray of the breast), which leads to further testing.

In some cases, however, the first sign of breast cancer is a new lump or mass in the breast that you or your doctor can feel. A lump that is painless, hard, and has uneven edges is more likely to be cancer. But sometimes cancers can be tender, soft, and rounded. So it's important to have anything unusual checked by your doctor.

According to the Cancer Society, any of the following unusual changes in the breast can be a symptom of breast cancer:

• swelling of all or part of the breast
• skin irritation or dimpling
• breast pain
• nipple pain or the nipple turning inward
• redness, scaliness, or thickening of the nipple or breast skin
• a nipple discharge other than breast milk
• a lump in the underarm area

These changes also can be signs of less serious conditions that are not cancerous, such as an infection or a cyst. It’s important to get any breast changes checked out promptly by a doctor.

Managing Fears

So many women you know may have had breast cancer — friends and neighbors, coworkers, relatives. It seems as if every time you turn around, breast cancer is being talked about in the newspaper or on TV. You may be fearful of developing breast cancer for the first time or of receiving a diagnosis after a mammogram or other testing. If you’ve had breast cancer, you may be fearful of a possible recurrence or even of the possibility that breast cancer could take your life.

Even though you may have some of these fears, you are not necessarily going to get breast cancer. If you have had breast cancer before, it doesn’t mean that the cancer will recur. Still, it's normal to have concerns about a disease that you hear about and see around you relatively often — and that you may have experienced yourself or through a loved one. Don't let the discussion of fear in this section feed into your own fears.

The fear of breast cancer is unlike any other — psychologists and other experts agree on that. The fear can take many different forms, depending upon where you are in the breast cancer experience. Understand that many of your fears are shared by others. While fears are normal, they are uncomfortable to live with. We'll help you figure out how you can manage fear so you can focus on living a happy and healthy life.

Stages Of Fear After Diagnosis

Most people go through several stages of fear when they are first diagnosed. The stages, and the order in which they happen, are very similar in most people:

• You just can't believe what you've heard and completely deny it.
• You get angry at the doctor who told you and anyone else, such as a lab technician or nurse, who read a result to you.
• You appeal to a higher power and ask over and over, “Why did this happen to me?” or “What did I do to deserve this?”
• You feel resigned, as if there’s nothing you can do to help yourself.
• You accept the truth, hard as it may be, and decide to fight with everything you’ve got in you.

A big part of the fear of breast cancer diagnosis is all the uncertainty and the feeling that you’ve lost control of your life — being swept away on an uncharted journey that you don’t want to take. It’s hard to imagine how anything good could happen on this particular trip.

It turns out that this isn’t necessarily so. While no one wants to be diagnosed with breast cancer, many people in treatment or finished with treatment say that the experience made them stronger and helped them to become closer to their families and friends and learn more about themselves. Being diagnosed is never easy, but once you start the process of getting the best available doctors, the best information, and the best support you can from those who love you, you are in good hands. " We all LOVE YOU Mama!!! WE are all HERE for YOU!!!"