Hi Rowie   I haven't had breast cancer.  But I had pretty advanced head and neck cancer.   Yes it's a new world.   I had 35 radiation treatments, and 7 rounds of cisplaton.  Really tough treatment to get through and fairly high recurrence rate and pretty much considered terminal if it comes back because radiation can't be done again.  I'm nearly three years out of treatment and looking good though.     Hope your treatment is succeeding and isn't too brutal   ... View more

If you're like me, the taste for sweet things will return very, very slowly.  Until then, sugar actually seems to make things taste worse.   I started using artificial sweeteners in my coffee, and drinking diet coke and red bull zero when I did have a drink of soft drink, and I found that artificial sweeteners actually sweetened things, where sugar did not.   This cured my sweet tooth, and I was better off for it.   I used to eat chocolate every day,  jam donuts, etc, etc.   They lost their appeal.  They didn't taste crap after my taste returned, they just didn't have that super yummy addictive taste they used to have.   Over two and a  half years after treatment, I'd say my taste is completly normal again, but my sugar addiction is cured, and I wont return to eating all those bad things again.   ... View more

Hi Jules   I was in the same boat as you with very little support when I was diagnosed just over 2 and a half years ago.  Mine was oral cancer, spread to lymph nodes in neck.   I had a friend who was recently diagnosed with terminal primary liver cancer not long before me.  My prognosis was not that great either,  and my friends attitude helped me a lot coming to terms with it.   In spite of his diagnosis, he was basically the same happy go lucky guy, and he lived life to the fullest.   Two things he kept stressing to me.   1.  You were never going to live forever and you always knew the day would come.   He also said,  dying of old age is no picnic either, withering away, with more more things in your body failing, its the cancer that everybody who avoids death for long enough suffers.   Think about that.    2.  Seek out things to occupy yourself regardless of what your limitation or physical condition is.   Constantly distract yourself with preferably enjoyable things that make you concentrate on other things apart from your illness.   I used to play video games that had problems to solve that required strategy and planning, and forced me to focus.   The other thing I done when my mind was bothered,  was get on my motorbike and ride.  Riding forces me to concentrate on the road, the surroundings.  It's not like driving a car where you can just daydream as you coast along.   When I'm on my bike,  my head is like on a swivel, and I view every car and truck on the road as if it was a lion, and I'm a dear.    In all likelyhood, you will be fine Jules.  Stage 1 is the early stage of the cancer.  The hysterectomy will probably remove it totally, and maybe they will do a course of chemo to clean up any stray cells that may have migrated to other locations if they think that is warranted.   Still a tough road to go down, with surgery and maybe chemo, but it ends.   It's a big shit sandwich that you have to eat, but after that, it's over, and you get back to normal.   Focus on the after part.   What your going to do when your all well again.   One thing about having cancer is that it's a massive wake up call, and complete realization that life is temporary.   That can have a positive effect on what you do with the rest of it.   ... View more

I had exactly same treatment as you.   First, the problem you have with bread etc, is probably mostly because of dry mouth.  Short term solution is simply, sip something with every mouthful.  Long term solution.....well......I'll give you mine.  I'm 2 years and 10 months out of treatment.   My saliva and taste is excellent.  Well, if my saliva was measured it would probably show that it's still less then normal, but I'm going by how it feels, my lived experience.    Ok, first thing to remember is that your mouth will produce more saliva when it's stimulated.........so......stimulate it all the time.    Eclipse sugar free mints......peppermint flavour seems to work best.  They replaced me carrying a bottle of water around with me everywhere.   Just suck them all the time and if you have at least marginal saliva production........you will  probably find the mints very helpful in keeping your mouth moist.    I'm just telling you what I done here,  and it seemed to work for  me,  so you can research and make your own choices, but I got myself a  Near Infrared lamp, and I used it......point blank range, straight up under my jaw.....for 15 mins per day.   After about a year of this,  my saliva  production is what I consider to be normal.....like I remember from before I had radiation.  Maybe just a little less.   As for your swallowing, yes, if you don't use em, you'll lose em.   Get yourself some nice juicy porterhouse steak.....smother it in sauces and creamy stuff.....and bog in.   This is how you get your taste back too........eat......all different stuff.   ... View more

Hi Salival   For the dry mouth,  eclipse sugar free mints, peppermint.....available everywhere, supermarkets, service stations.  They usually have them in racks at the service desks.   They stimulate saliva production, I'm never without them, and it saves me having to carry around a bottle of water everywhere.   As for at night, get yourself a little portable humidifier to put near your bed, and try a chin strap that keeps your mouth closed while you sleep.  If you breath through your mouth much, your mouth dries out very fast.  The extra moisture in the air from the humidifier helps keep your throat moist.   Later on, after you have been cleared of cancer in your follow up tests.......you might like to look at Near Infared lamps to treat the treatment areas.   Two things you are going to have to watch out for are Thrush,  and dental decay.  Get obsessive about your dental hygiene...no sugar.  And watch out for signs of thrush......unless you are really lucky,  you'll get it.....repeating over and over again as long as your saliva level is low.   Nilstate oral drops from the chemist gets rid of it.   I gave up waiting for mine to come back after treatment and just stared taking one dose a day as a preventative treatment.  I've whittled that down to one dose ever second day and that seems to be the min level that stops it coming back.   If you are eating sugary foods, or alcohol,  etc,  or taking antibiotics, you become even more prone to it.    If your mouth is sore, try Difflam Plus losenger.  They have Lidocain in them, numbs really well.  Also Difflam Plus sore throat spray.   The spray is stronger and faster acting,  but doesn't last as long as slowly sucking a losenger.    ... View more

Don't sweat David.  If they have scanned everything and found no cancer anywhere else,  then you are in very early stage.   The first I knew of my cancer was when a massive lump appeared in my neck.  It had already spread to the lymph nodes .  Worst part was they searched and searched but never found the original source.  So I had massive amounts of radiation all round, from the bottom of my ears down to my collar bones.......both sides.....back and front......everything....as well as 7 rounds of cisplatin.   The did work out what sort of cancer it was from biopsy of the lump in my neck.   It was basaliod SCC, it's only saving grace was that it was p16 positive.    The treatment was tough to get through but I'm over two years past treatment now and looking good.    At least they know where  yours started, which is a very common site.   They probably will follow up the surgery with some radiation and chemo just to make sure they clean up any stray cells that may be lurking in your lymph nodes nearby that haven't grown to at detectable level yet.   If your cancer is SCC and p16 positive, at your stage of development you'll be in the 90% plus range, in your favor, or complete cure that is.   If it's not p16 positive your chances are still good at this early stage, but probably in the range of 50 to 70%.   You will almost certainly be cleared after treatment.  Then the only question is if you will have a recurrence down the line.   The vast majority of recurrences happen in the first two years after treatment, and most of the rest by the five year mark.  After five years they count you as completely cured.    I'd bet large sums of money on you coming out of this fine.  Your position at this time is better then most when the cancer is first discovered.   Way better then my prognosis was, and I'm fine over two years post treatment.    You be fine David  🙂 ... View more

I lost a few friends, and didn't have a lot to start with.   For a year or maybe a bit longer prior to my diagnosis, my son had been getting harder and harder to get together with.  Long story, but, when I told him of my diagnosis,  he stopped ignoring my txts etc for a while, and we spoke regularly on phone, and he said he as sorry he'd been so absent recently.  It wasn't just me,  he was ghosting my entire family.   Anyway, all of a sudden he stopped answering my txts for no apparent reason.  This was right in the middle of my treatment.......8 rounds of cisplatin, 35 radiation treatments, head and neck.   Pretty horrific treatment.   So I get pissed off at him and sent him a txt letting him have it, about how he was ignoring his grandmother, uncle, aunty, cousins, and me.  He came back with the lamest bullshit excuses you ever heard......and I told him so.   Then he told me to piss off and I'm not his family anymore.  Said I'm not welcome to contact him anymore.   And I haven't seen him or heard from him since.  The xmas after that,  I got up the courage to just go to his house, to deliver an xmas present.   I didn't even get tot he front door and he yelled out from inside to piss off or he'll call the cops.   So I left, and the police rang me later and told me that if I contact him again he will go to magistrates court to put a restraining order on me.   I raised him, my only son, only child.  His mother got seriously mentally ill when he was 5 years old....and wound up being confined to mental institutions again and again for years.    She's still an outpatient 30 years later.   He's been the person I care about more then anything in life.   I'm gutted.   Not a day goes by when I don't mourn him, and I cry on the inside every day.   What's happened between us has caused me more pain and fear then my cancer.    There were other people who ghosted me, and I figure it's because you become a liability and someone who might ask for big favors or help, and people can't be bothered so they make themselves scarce to avoid telling you the truth......you don't matter, and they couldn't care less about  your problems.    But I only mourn my Son.    ... View more

pay the money and get it done asap. The longer it's there, the more chance it will spread. ... View more

@Freddy123    They gave me boxes of them a month or so into treatment.  I think they only give them out to people with feeding tubes.  They do come with a straw though so they must be for drinking too......and they are yummy.   Have no idea where to get them,  that was the first time and last time I ever saw or heard of them.   I have a feeling nestles make them for hospital use only.  That's like the pink lady oral solution.  The gave me scripts for it but the only place I could fill them was the hospital chemist. ... View more

@bodymycin    Just go and have an oral examination every once in a while and apart from that forget about it and get on with your life.  That's what I am doing and I'm an ex smoker or 42 years who actually has had oral cancer which spread to advanced stage right through neck.  This particular cancer has a high rate of recurrence.  But what can I do......it is what it is........the future is uncertain.   It could come back next week, next year.....5 years time.....or never.   Only time will tell........so live well and be happy, for tomorrow we die.   The last part of that will be true one day no matter what you do or don't do.    ... View more