Breast Cancer in men

You said you’d found it when you were on your fishing trip?

 Well I discovered it in 2000. We were meeting together in a group and I just happened to put my hands across my chest and I noticed there was a lump in my left breast. Having worked in a hospital and also… as a technician, not a nurse, and also a friend of ours had recently been through a very painful death from breast cancer, I was immediately suspicious of this lump so I went to the GP straight away, and within a week I’d seen the surgeon down at the hospital which was treating me, and he confirmed there was a lump. I had a biopsy and a mammogram and it proved… actually, the worst thing of that was the first time I went to see the out-patients department, they weren’t sure of the diagnosis. The histology was a bit unclear, and they needed it to be seen on somebody sort of more senior presumably. So that was a very, very difficult week, between the two meetings but I had a very personal experience of God’s love for me. 

Well, seen from the advantage of looking back in time, I think I'd probably been feeling rather unwell for well over a year. For reasons that were not entirely clear. And I think I may have spoken with a GP at some stage who said something like ‘perhaps you should have a holiday for a change’, or something like that. But I felt - I remember speaking with colleagues and saying 'I feel like shit today' – if you’ll pardon the language - and I have no understanding of why that's the case, I've slept well, I just feel completely drained and just generally unwell. So that sort of sets a background, but obviously I didn't know what the problem was. But, let's see, in around June 2007 I got out of the shower and was towelling myself down and thought what on earth is this in my chest and sort of probed around a bit here. And it really felt like something hard, as though I had a piece of plastic under the surface behind my right nipple. So it was rather disconcerting. And I remember at the time thinking 'oh bugger I think I know what that is'. Cos I couldn't think what else it conceivably could be. Unlike, it seems, large numbers of people out there in the general public, I knew about male breast cancer. 

 I remember it very vividly of course. It was the weekend of the Mayday holiday and, it wasn’t me that found the lump it was my wife who… she ran her hand over my chest and found this lump. And I always remember being immediately worried about it, because I hadn’t noticed it of course. So the doctor was closed on Monday. And I went into work on Tuesday and phoned the doctor for an appointment, and went from work on that Tuesday to the doctor. And he examined me and did indeed find a lump and he didn’t seem too worried about it. And he said he would refer me to the hospital. That was fine. I left, the doctor, I didn’t go back to work I don’t think that day. Anyway the next day I spoke to a lady who had breast cancer, and asked about her experience and she told me. And eh, she said that things were really good in [area] because they did this one step clinic for people with lumps on their chest. But that- turned out only to be for women, actually. And anyway, in the interim between me going to the hospital and finding out about this lump, I became really worried about it, and I have to say in my mind it was growing all the time. And then more symptoms appeared, because I began to have this real itch in both nipples. And this lump just to the inside of one. And, I went back to the doctor, I saw a different person, who did tell me I’d been referred to the surgical clinic at the hospital, and, she told me she thought I might better stay off work, in the interim.

I first became aware of a lump in my left breast probably in the Autumn of 2005, it never registered with me that it would be anything like breast cancer. However, I carried on doing, doing work, stock, I do stock taking for my work. I continued through the Autumn period into the New Year of 2006. It… the lump didn’t go away but it seemed to get slightly bigger and I became concerned, I thought well, if I go and knock this on a shelf or going up a ladder or anything like that what would be the consequences? It certainly didn’t register that it would be breast cancer, I was more concerned about if I banged it, what would happen then. So, I went to the, to go and see my GP, and when I went to see my GP eh, straight away had me off to be referred.

Well my story, I think it’s a little bizarre in a way, Kate the problem as I call it, started, I call it a problem because breast cancer was the furthest thing from my mind when the problem, as I call it, started. I was in the bathroom, stripped off for a shower or something, and I happened to look in the mirror and I thought, ‘that right nipple, it seemed to be slightly smaller and flatter than the other one’. But, being a male I took no notice. Two or three days later, another look, I said honestly I took no notice whatsoever. I don’t know what was going on inside my brain, what I thought it was, I haven’t got a clue. Anyway a few weeks passed, and I said to my wife one night, we were getting undressed ready to go to bed, and I says, “Look at that nipple compared with that one”. And, “Oh my God” she said “you need that checked out”. [name] works at the hospital so she, you know. So being a male, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ok love ok”.

 It first started, oddly enough, about fifty years ago – I was twenty years old at the time, and I noticed I had a lump under my left nipple. I squeezed it and got some blood and puss out – but fifty years ago, nobody ever thought about male breast cancer. So I never thought any more about it. It hardened into a small lump, just behind the nipple, and it stayed like that for about forty odd years – as far as I can remember. And then, about five or six years ago, I’m not quite sure how long ago, it grew again, which I became a little bit concerned about – but it stopped growing. And I thought, well after forty-odd years, if that’s as much as it’ll do, it’s not worth bothering about. So just about eight months ago, it grew again overnight, and that’s when I got really worried. And I went down to the doctors the following day – and I got an appointment the following day. I was admitted to hospital about ten days later – very quickly. They had an emergency cancellation, and I got that instead, and I had a mastectomy, which was completely painless – no bother at all. Occasional, slight twinge, but over the entire period of time, I haven’t felt pain at all – there’s no problem with the pain or anything like that. Of course, I had the seroma which meant it grew up with fluid quite a lot of it, actually – a bit of a nuisance but no problem at all. I went in and got it drained. So that’s basically about as much of the story. The thing I want to get over is if you’ve, any male or female has a lump on their breast, go down, immediately, to the doctor – otherwise, if you delay it, of course, the cancer can spread.

Well the first thing I had a brush with cancer I was playing snooker at my local club and someone said to me, "You've cut yourself you've got blood on your shirt," and I thought that's odd you know. I just didn't know how I'd cut myself playing snooker and I didn't take any notice of that at all. And then 2 days after that I was playing snooker again and someone else said, "You've cut yourself, you've got blood on your shirt." I thought this can't be right because there was no cut anywhere or anything. So I went and saw my local GP and he sent me to see a doctor at the hospital. And this was on the Wednesday and on the Friday lunch time I got a phone call and the doctor said, "You're in hospital Tuesday." And I said "Well hold on a moment I've got a job you know." Then he said, "Well don't say no now," he said "because in 6 weeks time you might not be able to say anything," he said "you've got cancer." I thought this is ridiculous you know you don't think that it's going to happen to you. So I went and went into hospital and it was a very minor operation as such and after 3 months they told me its benign which was I thought terrific you know that was a let off really more than anything. So then I didn't think much of it at all. But after that about 10 years after that I noticed that my nipple was getting very disfigured on the same side I had the operation, so I've gone to the local GP again and there again I've gone to the hospital and he took, they took a sample of fluid from the chest but within 10 minutes the registrar came in the room and said, "You've got to have an operation," so he must've known before they took the sample. So that didn't take very long, I've gone into the hospital again and it was quite a large operation apparently, they didn't think it was going to be so large until they opened me up.

 Well I- I had this lump next to my nipple for, x amount of years, right? And it didn’t bother me. Then, say about four year before I had the operation maybe five year before I had the operation, it began to get itchy. It was only a wee tiny, it was like a second nipple actually, maybe no even as big as my nipple you know. And eh, I went to my doctor’s and my doctor says to me, “It’s nothing to worry about Mr [name]”, I’ve got on well with my doctor by the way I do, Dr [name of GP], he’s a very nice chap. And, I said, “Well that’s fine”, he said “if you want to go in” he says, “you can go in to get it cut out” he says “and that’ll be it”. I says, “No”, I says “I can live with this”, I says “I’ll be fine”, you know. So, we used to go down to the caravan, down in- down the [name of area ] coast, we used to go down there. One day I was having a shower in the caravan and it bled, you know. So I just, I says, “Ach well it’ll be okay”. But it started to get very itchy. This is the only way I can explain it to you my dear, you know. And, I went back to the doctor’s - this was, say about four year before it- after it started getting itchy you know. And I went back to this doctor and it was a wee locum doctor that was there, hell of a nice wee chap. And, I’d says to him, I actually went down, I had- where I work, I’m a DCO, a Day Care Officer, with profound children and that you know.

I’d been having a problem with my left nipple area, it was getting very, very sensitive, and I noticed that there were a couple of lumps there. So I thought, “Right, this needs looking at, I think”. And I was about to go away on holiday to Turkey, so I thought, perhaps I wouldn’t get as good healthcare out there as I would get here, so I thought, go to the GP, and he had a check around the area, he could feel the lumps as well. There were about three or four definite, hard lumps there which were very, very tender and painful – I mean, literally, even with the shirt on, it was painful. So he organised a mammogram for me, but in the meantime I actually went on holiday, and I did feel a little bit better. When I came back, I had the mammogram almost within a couple of days of me returning. I had to wait a week then for the results, and then I was called in, met my consultant surgeon, introduced to the breast care nurse, and I thought, “Something’s probably up here”, and he said he’d found a lump. And I thought, “Oh, right, okay” – so I thought, right, he’s found a lump, what does that mean, and he said, “We think it’s aggressive breast cancer.” Alarm bells were ringing again. And he said, “It’s in your right breast,” and I thought, “No, it can’t possibly be in my right breast, because my left breast is the problem area”. So I said, “Don’t you mean my left breast?” He said, “No, it’s definitely in your right breast.”