My name is Tony and I live with my wife, Val, in Enfield, North London.
In 2022, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was 73 years old.
The previous year, I had noticed a lump beside my left nipple, and when it didn’t go away, I went to see my doctor. He examined me and arranged an ultrasound. I later received a phone call saying that it was a cyst, nothing to worry about.
At this point, I didn’t have a clue that men could get breast cancer; I thought that it was only a woman’s disease.
About a year later, the lump had started to become sore, so I returned to my GP. This time, a mammogram, biopsies, and blood tests were also taken. As a result of this, another set of biopsies was taken, and on 9th November 2022, the news was broken to me that I had breast cancer, and worse still, it had spread to my other breast.
As we had already booked a holiday for Christmas, it was agreed I could have the surgery on my return and was started on Tamoxifen immediately.
The following February, I had a double mastectomy. After my operation, I spent a night in the hospital and was discharged early the following day without any contact from medical staff and no clue as to what had been done and how to cope with after-care when I got home.
This was very distressing and worrying for my wife, and as I was discharged with four tubes in the wounds, attached to four pint-sized drainage bottles, and no clue what to do with them.
I contacted the local hospital breast clinic, where I had all my previous consultations, and they saw me straight away, and my aftercare with them was wonderful.
I was put on Tamoxifen, but because of the unbearable side effects, I stopped taking it after several months.
I have tried various routes to find more information about the effects and side effects of Tamoxifen, but there are hardly any facts available on men; all the research has been directed at women. As the number of men who contract the disease is so much smaller, it is still very much a grey area.
My thoughts are that it is said that it can prevent the cancer from coming back and lengthen your life by a couple of years. But if it was making my life a misery, I didn’t think it was worth it. I could die of something else before then.
My daughter Googled breast cancer in men and found The Men’s VMU. At first, I wasn’t sure because I didn’t feel I could discuss it with a group of strangers. I am so glad that she found them, as chatting on the Zoom meetings with men with a similar diagnosis is so informative. There is very little factual information to be found anywhere.”