If you or a family member is unfortunately diagnosed with breast cancer, please do not panic. The treatment of breast cancer is very sophisticated and is making great progress. Even triple-negative breast cancer, which is the most difficult to treat, currently has specific drugs to treat it, and other treatment options are still being studied. Most breast cancers have developed into chronic diseases, so there is no reason to be too nervous. Most medications are covered by health insurance and the treatment costs are around 1.5 to 10 W (after health insurance deductions), depending on the disease and local medical treatment.
From the perspective of someone who has experienced it, everyone will experience “shock – disbelief – how could it be me – accept reality – seek medical methods.” No matter what stage you are in, please don’t panic just yet.
Step one: Once diagnosed
The treatment of breast cancer is very sophisticated. We cannot guarantee that we will find a trustworthy doctor with real medical skills the first time. I am not a TCM expert, but please do not rely on TCM at this time. When they were first diagnosed, many people sought traditional Chinese medicine doctors because they had no symptoms. As a result, many people delayed the best time for medical treatment and their symptoms changed from mild to severe. We all only live once and healing time is very important.
Step 2: Evaluate and identify hospitals and physicians.
Regardless of how you are diagnosed with breast cancer and at which hospital, you must first understand the evaluation and determine which hospital and doctor you want to treat.
The first step is to understand your condition. What stages of breast cancer have you been diagnosed with? For details you can compare them with the following table:
(This is just a simple classification. The specific classification can only be determined after a pathological examination after the operation. At this point, the doctor will roughly determine the current situation based on experience and examination reports.)
| Period | default |
| Stage 0 (carcinoma in situ) | It refers to the growth of cancer cells trapped in the basement membrane of the breast duct epithelium without breaking the basement membrane and invading outside the duct. |
| Phase 1 (early stage) | Tumor ≤2 cm, no larger lymph nodes with micrometastases or no evidence of a primary tumor, but lymph nodes with micrometastases |
| Phase 2 (early stage) | Tumor >2 cm, no lymph node enlargement or evidence of a primary tumor. Tumor >2 cm and ≤5 cm, but axillary lymph node metastasis |
| Level 3 (locally advanced) | Regardless of the tumor status, there is tumor lymph node metastasis and the lymph nodes are fixed or fused, there is clavicle lymph node metastasis or the tumor is > 5 cm in size, there is axillary lymph node metastasis and there is lymph node activity |
| Stage 4 (advanced or metastatic) | However, regardless of the condition of the tumor, the cancer cells have spread to other parts of the body |
cancer hospital
The first recommendation is the local cancer hospital or a large tertiary hospital. This is because of the health insurance. If you seek medical treatment in different cities or provinces, The local hospital must issue a referral request and submit it to the local health insurance company before proceeding (contact the local health insurance company for further information), otherwise the reimbursement rate will be lower than the local hospitals reimbursement rate .
If you are in a county seat or a third or fourth tier city, it is still recommended to go to a cancer hospital or a first-class hospital in a provincial capital. However, if you are in a first or second category city, the local cancer hospital or top three hospitals will be your first choice.
Step 3: Interview doctors and choose a hospital.
Rumors develop over many years and do not just appear now. Please take more time to research the disease and choose a doctor and hospital. At this point, you should be like a smart buyer and do multiple inspections. This is all to make the subsequent treatment go more smoothly. Once you make a choice, don’t change it later. Just stay there and look at it. You will not regret it. After all, it’s true. The best choice after inspection.
First choice: doctor and treatment plan
The first, of course, is the doctor’s skills. Breast-conserving operations in particular require highly qualified surgical techniques.
The other is the medical plan. Some diseases are more complicated, involve multiple types of cancer, or the patient is weak and not suitable for surgery, etc. You need to see more doctors to find out which plan is more beneficial for the disease.
Second choice: Hospital environment:
Some hospitals say that many patients are lying outside and one bedside doctor has to look after many patients. In the later stages, it is difficult to take full care of them. It is recommended to visit the inpatient department more frequently and to ask patients about their well-being. If they feel that the medical care here is very good, they can think about doing it here. (The heart is very fragile during and after surgery and requires double care. The attitude of doctors and nurses is very critical. When there are many patients and doctors cannot take care of them, it is inevitable that problems will arise that patients think they are wrong, so do not be lazy to conduct further examinations in the early stages.
Breast cancer stage
Consider again the convenience of medical follow-up treatment:
Cancer is a series of treatments and does not end with a single operation. Depending on the disease, chemotherapy and radiation therapy may be necessary. If you are far from home, chemotherapy is fine and you can basically go back and forth on the same day. However, radiation therapy requires dozens of consecutive radiation therapy treatments and requires you to rent a house on site, which is very inconvenient. You must consider the convenience of family members and patients.
Furthermore, the initial onset of breast cancer is not serious. The scariest thing is the repetition. After a recurrence, it is usually necessary to return to the original hospital doctor for treatment. Therefore, it is very important to identify the hospital and doctor during the first consultation. Illness is never an individual matter, but a family matter. In addition to accompanying and caring for the patient, the relatives are also under financial, psychological, professional and other stress. Therefore, these factors must be taken into account to choose the hospital that is best suited for the patient.
In simple terms, if it is a simple disease like stage 0-2, you can opt for local or regional oncology or tertiary A hospital. You can choose the doctor, hospital environment, distance from home, etc. according to your own situation.
When it is a complex condition, there is one standard, one doctor and one treatment plan.
Our lives are in our hands. It is very important to us who we vote for. Please spend more time here. Don’t just look at a house and decide straight away, listen more, see more, think more and learn more.
Once these decisions are made, we should never think about them again after hospitalization. We should trust the doctor 100% and cooperate with the treatment. Keep your mood in order, don’t put too much pressure on yourself, just cry when you are stressed, don’t feel wronged,
When emotions are expressed, people will feel much more relaxed and their perspective on things will be different. For example, it was dark before, but after crying it feels better. People always overestimate their abilities and underestimate their endurance. Have no fear. Difficulties are difficult and you can overcome them.
This is just the experience summarized by the author based on his own experience and some book covers. It’s impossible not to panic. I have read a lot of sharing and popular science books. One is “Save the Breast” from the USA and the other is “Breast Cancer” from the local publisher. But my heart is not here. My eyes are watching and my heart is… Two years have passed since I ran away. When I opened these two books again, I realized that the pitfalls I had gone through were all explained in the books, but I didn’t read into them and picked the wrong key points.
In fact, choosing the right doctor is the most important thing for patients!
Finally, please relax. Breast cancer is not a disease that kills you immediately. It is a chronic disease with numerous treatments and methods. Since breast cancer is already the most common disease in the world, enormous investments are being made worldwide in research into this disease. As long as we live, we will always wait for a cure, and as long as we live, there will always be hope.
