By 2020, the bruising on my breast had got significantly worse and I made an appointment with my GP and because of Covid, this was a phone appointment and she referred me back to the breast care team. The appointment took several weeks to come through. I attended alone because of Covid and all the staff were masked up and kept as far away from me as they could. The consultant reluctantly did a biopsy (as she was trying to maintain social distance) and then stitched me up. I was left with the impression that the biopsy was precautionary.

A few days later, I received a phone call from a different breast care consultant to report on the results of the biopsy. He started by apologising that this was being done over the phone rather than face to face. He said that, unfortunately, they had found that I had angiosarcoma, most likely caused by the radiotherapy. This was a very rare and aggressive type of soft tissue cancer. Unfortunately, angiosarcoma doesn’t show on ultrasound scans – hence missing earlier signs of a rare cancer. 

I asked about treatment, and he said that surgery (mastectomy) was the most likely route and that I would be referred on to a specialist sarcoma service and that they would be having a Multidisciplinary Team Meeting to plan my treatment. 

I was in total shock. I had never heard of angiosarcoma and a quick Google made for very scary reading. About an hour after the phone call, a breast care nurse rang me. She said that she had been present when the consultant phoned and she was now following up to check what I understood and to see how I was. Again, she was very apologetic that this was being done over the phone due to Covid. 

I was told that the only treatment was surgery and so a mastectomy was scheduled. I was warned that, even if they got clear margins, angiosarcoma tends to skip over margins and that there was a high risk of spread to the other breast or to the lungs. 

Because of Covid, all my face to face consultations were alone.  I had to go to hospital on my own, with no visitors. This made it very difficult to take in lots and lots of complicated information and so I’m glad that I took every opportunity to write everything down from the outset. 

During all of the pre-op scans, it emerged that the Tamoxifen had also caused unwanted side effects so I was also referred to a gynaecologist and have had to start a whole raft of other treatments. Whilst having surgery, the sarcoma specialists performed a mastectomy closely followed by the Gynae team who operated on the other end!  Because of the risk of recurrence I now have 3 monthly scans and consultant appointments. So far, all has been well.