Hi, my name is Sarah Crimmins. At age 28, when my daughter was only 11 months old (in December 2008), I was diagnosed with Grade 3 Invasive Breast Cancer.

Since then I have had a mastectomy of my left breast, gone through IVF, 4 months of Chemotherapy, 5 weeks of radiotherapy, hospitalised with meningitis and just recently in December 2009, I underwent a prophylactic mastectomy of my right breast with immediate reconstruction and a reconstruction of my left breast using the latissimus dorsi.

At the start of my cancer journey I spent hours on the internet searching for similar stories to my own and in particular, photographs of those women so I could gain an understanding of what I was about to go through and although I found some, I didn't find many.

This is the main reason for my blog. I wanted to be able to share my experience and photographs of my journey in the hope that it will help someone else with the decisions that they are about to face.

This is the story of the worst year of my life, from finding the lump all the way to my reconstruction surgery and beyond.........

Please feel free to post some comments, actually i would absolutely love it if you would xo

November 2008, I've found a lump.....

I breastfed my daughter Macy for 6 months and just after I weaned her, which was around the time of my sister's wedding, I noticed a lump on my left breast and sometimes it even hurt to touch. I put it out of my mind for months, assuming it was a blocked milk duct.
By September 2008 I noticed it again and showed my husband but neither of us were concerned about it as we just assumed it was a blocked milk duct or something related to the end of the breastfeeding so again I sort of just forgot about it. By November it still hadn't gone away, and if anything it was bigger so one day when I was having a chat to my mum I mentioned it to her, and being the overprotective mother that she is, insisted that I go and see my Doctor straight away. My good friend and boss also kept calling me to make sure that I went to get the lump checked because she had told me about a story of a lady (much older than me though) who found a lump and a week later had to have it removed as it was cancer. That story scared the hell out of me so I arranged to go and see the Dr the following week.
My Doctor is fantastic and I wasn't nervous or scared about the lump in the slightest so at the checkup I just said to her that I'm not expecting it to be anything so if its something to be concerned about to just give me a call to avoid me having to go back unnecessarily. She was also quite confident that it would be a fibroadonema and I wouldn't need to do anything about it. Just to be sure though, she sent me for an ultrasound because at my age, 28, my breast tissue is quite dense and therefore hard to read via a mammogram.
I made the appointment for an ultrasound and got in about 2 weeks later. I was a little bit nervous at the ultrasound because the sonographer made some comments about the only way to be sure is to get a biopsy and I was still thinking 'yeah right, as if it's going to go that far!' Because I'd told my Doctor to only call me if it's bad I put it all out of my head for the next few days.....until I got a phone call from my mum saying 'Don't be alarmed but Dr Steward called and she wants you to go in and see her about your results'. Bloody Hell!!! I couldn't believe it!
Anyway my husband and I went in to see her that day but my she wasn't in so I saw a different doctor and she just said 'look I wouldn't worry, you can leave it as is or you can go and get it taken out in surgery' and that was about it. My husband and I decided to go in the next day to see my normal doctor because it just didn't sound right. Lucky we did because my Dr said that she wanted me to go get a biopsy within the next 2 weeks. If my own doctor hadn't reviewed the results, not one of the other doctors would have sent me for a biopsy, it was only because Dr Steward had noticed increased blood flow to the area that she thought it was urgent for me to get a biospy. Talk about putting our lives in the hands of our Doctors. If I had listen to the first doctor I hate to think where I would be now.
The Sydney Breast Clinic were fantastic. Looking back on it I was being a bit silly to start with because all I was worried about was the money it was going to cost us to get all these tests done. I really wanted a new outdoor setting for christmas for our renovated house and each time they wanted me to get a new test I was saying to myself, there goes the money for it! It's so silly I know because by the end of the day who gave a crap how much it cost us, they had just given me the news that would change my life forever!
We were the last to leave that day and $1,500.00 later, sorry but we've confirmed by ultrasound, mammogram, small needle biopsy and core biopsy that it's cancer. I was numb leaving the office, and on the walk back to the train station my husband and I decided to wait until we got home to tell the news because we had a 2 hour trip home and didn't want everyone stressing out.
It was strange telling everyone though. At one stage I was the one telling everyone that it would be ok and my family were the ones crying. My brother especially was shocked because at the time he hadn't even know that I'd found a lump and it was being investigated so it was a huge shock to him.
The Breast Clinic had referred me to a surgeon that was highly recommended and suggested we see him asap to get the ball rolling. The following week I had my first meeting with Dr Thomson and we left with some big decisions to make.
Posted by Sarah Crimmins

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