Sean is a telecom engineer who lives in England. He is married and has two children. Today, he lives a full life and loves to spend time going to music festivals, watching soccer games and traveling.
Sean's Male Breast Cancer Diagnosis
Age at diagnosis: 43Type of breast cancer: invasive ductal breast cancer, hormone receptor positive
Lymph node status: 5 of 23 lymph nodes involved
Tumor description: 13mm diameter, grade 3 tumor
Q: How were you diagnosed with male breast cancer?
A: I first found a lump on my right breast in May 2007, and it took three visits to my doctor before they referred me to the hospital. The doctor thought at first [that] it was just fatty tissue and would go [away] in time. The lump was the size of a small pea (13mm), quite hard and didn't fade, hence my continued visits to the doctor. Even the breast cancer specialist at the hospital didn't think it was cancerous, as there was no history of breast cancer in my family both on my mother and father's sides. And cancer was a rarity in the family. Only after an ultrasound caused concern and a following biopsy revealed that it was cancer did I get a clear diagnosis.
Q: How did you react when you first learned that you had breast cancer?
A: I was told before my [biopsy] results that they thought the chances of them coming back positive were slim, so on the day I felt reasonably confident, although obviously a niggling worry at the back of my mind. I would like to point out that only 5 days before the results were out we had moved house from Norwich to a small town in the county called Aylsham, so everything was a bit chaotic. My initial reaction on being told that I had breast cancer was a stunned one. Was I the person being told this news? Surely not! It was so uncommon in men, although I was aware even before I found the lump that men could develop breast cancer or MBC (male breast cancer).
Tell me about starting treatment.
A: I was told that I would undergo a full mastectomy the following week. My wife and I were taken into the Breastcare Nurses' office to talk and ask questions about the news I had just received.
The first five days after diagnosis I was in a kind of daze, and sleeping was near impossible. My son was on holiday on the other side of the world and, since we're very close, this was hard. But the rest of my family and a few close friends did as best as they could to take my mind off it and to reassure me that things would turn out OK. The support from family and friends was so important -- after all, I was facing my own mortality.
Q: How did you deal with the emotional impact of diagnosis?
A: After all, these [family members] were the people I loved and cared for greatly. I feared that if I were to die, they would be the ones to suffer. The thought of not being around to look after them really scared me. I started to think every little ache or pain was the cancer -- that it had spread. After all, I wasn't sure how long this cancer had been growing in me. I remember being unable to sleep, and driving to the coast at 4 a.m. and standing on the beach, looking out to sea, trying to come to terms with cancer and getting no answers, not that I expected any.
Did you eventually come to terms with it?
A: Talking to everybody I came in contact with helped a great deal -- it was my own therapy, in a way. I didn't feel embarrassed at all that here was a male with breast cancer, and I was surprised by the number of both men and women who thought men couldn't get breast cancer. Then, approximately five days after diagnosis, I came to terms with the cancer. Only one word describes [this], and that is acceptance. I had a kind of an epiphany in a non-religious way. I accepted the fact that there was nothing I could do, apart from having the operation and any treatment there after. It was that simple, and I became very positive from that time on. This helped [me] tremendously for what was to come.
