Kini's Journey with Breast Cancer

I have a family history of breast cancer. My mother had it at 65 and her's was post menopausal. I was 41 when it was found on a mammogram which made me pre-menopausal. I had a lumpectomy where they discovered that I had one positive lymph node. My doctor recommended that I have chemotherapy and radiation which I did. I had 6 months chemotherapy and about 30 days of radiation. I did lose my hair as I was told. I was later put on tamoxifin. I really thought that I might not live to see my sons go through high school and so forth. A few years later they found a spot on my lung which was too small to operate. At that time they put me on megace which was used for lung cancer. It turned out that the spot went away and I didn't have lung cancer. I stayed on the megace which caused me to gain a lot of weight. I did have side effects some years after my diagnosis. My breast turned beat red and I had a high fever. My doctor told me that it was a sign effect of the radiation. In 2006 it was discovered on colonoscopy that I had colon cancer. The treatment that time was the removal of 1/3 of my colon. Since it was insitu I was not required to have any other treatment. To my knowledge there is no family history of colon cancer. It has been 22 years and I have been fortunate enough not to have a re-occurrence of cancer. I follow up every year with a mammogram. I never gave up and never plan to. My health is good now and hopefully it will stay that way.