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lamazeteacher
2,170 Posts
As all groups do, sometimes one or two outspoken people can get quite far out in LLL. I called it "raising the breastfeeding flag too high", in the classes I taught expectant parents.
Who knows what the mom was thinking, when she breastfed so long when she'd been told that she had breast cancer (had she?)- it could have been denial, putting two theories together incorrectly, or miscommunication with the doctor who didn't take charge getting her to treatment.
It's known that progesterone and estrogen highten cancer cells' aberant rapid formation, but I haven't read anything about the lactation hormones doing that. It's more likely that the hormones of pregnancy caused the "doubling time" of those cells to become faster.....
And also some people become so frightened, they twist the information they've heard. If she was a "lay" person, she may have been frantically breastfeeding longer under the belief that breastfeeding forestalls breast cancer. There used to be a thought/theory that if a women breastfed 4 babies for one year each, she was LESS LIKELY to have breast cancer. I was very glad when that became less likely, as many women who really didn't want to breastfeed, did so thinking it would safeguard them. You can imagine the conflicting emotions' effect on the baby!
When my son was 15 months old in 1974, I discovered a pea sized lump in my left breast at 3 o'clock, in the late night hours before Columbus Day. I was on the ceiling and the walls emotionally, and called my doctor and any other one I knew, the following morning. None had office hours that day. Finally I gritted my teeth and overcame my reticense to change a professional relationship (where I was the professional), and called a young general surgeon who was taking my classes, and told him my predicament. He said he was going to his office anyway (liar) and would meet me there at 3 PM .
When I arrived, he said that I was "much too young for breast cancer" (at 35 years of age), and that he'd feel the lump and then aspirate it, as it was "probably a cyst". Well, the needle found no fluid. In those days, mammography wasn't done in the 'burbs' hospitals, and patients having surgery were admitted the night before it. So I was admitted forthwith.
The excision of a mass was usually done with "frozen section" diagnosis in the O.R. followed by a modified radical mastectomy immediately upon finding abnormal cells. I convinced myself (told myself a story) that I wouldn't have cancer in a small community hospital, as one only does that at large teaching hospitals.
They were just beginning to tell patients they had cancer, waking them up to do so, just before the anaesthetist put them down again for the radical, after a positive sighting of cancer cells. My doctor offered that, but being the stalwart patient, I said he shouldn't bother, as I'd know when I woke up if I had a small dressing or a big one.
I wasn't so brave when I woke up with the big dressing, feeling betrayed (by myself). I remembered that my son hadn't wanted to nurse at my left breast very much, and nursed only 2 minutes on each one, for 8 months, then weaned me, as he took greater amounts of solid foods.
Later I read an article that stated that occasionally babies don't like the taste of the milk from a breast with cancer cells in it. Then I felt terribly guilty, wondering what I'd fed him, thinking that he could get some form of cancer from drinking bad cells (faulty thinking). It did occur to me then, that my mother had breast cancer, and the likelihood that I'd have it was huge. I'd just attended her funeral the month before, following her year's fight with ovarian cancer.
I'm writing all this, to illustrate how weird the mind gets in a crisis such as the one your LLL leader and I experienced. Also I hope that others reading this will know that it's normal to have "out there" thoughts if this happens to you. It's extremely important to ditch any thought that comes between you and getting immediate treatment, if you find a lump or abnormality in your breast that wasn't there before. I had examined my breasts the month before I found my lump. and knew there was nothing that could be palpated. That was reassuring, to know it was early in the process.
The thing that disturbs me about your LLL leader, is that she may have known the mass was getting larger, and still didn't get treatment! That is just self destructive, as she found out - too late. I taught breast self examination for the American Cancer Society, as a volunteer in the '70s and '80s, and had occasionally spoken to a woman who watched as her lump increased in size, afraid to go for help, lest she find her fears were realised. That's real "head in the sand" thinking!
I feel very sad that women aren't encouraged to do monthly breast self examination as much these days, at mid cycle (2 weeks before your next period is anticipated)...... You don't want to have mammography monthly, and the cells can multiply in a month to the point that you could feel a lump. So please do it, on your back with a firm pillow underneath your back on the side you're examining, and your arm raised over your head, making gentle circles on your breast as if it was a clock, going to each number, then making the round again until you get to your nipple (too much pressure can obliterate a lump). Remember to examine your axilla too, and see if fluid can be expressed from your nipple (there will be fluid if you've breastfed within the past 6 months).
The examinations of each breast need to be done at a mirror too, when you're standing up with your hands on your hips, to allow greater visualization of your breasts. Any irregularity in shape, or dimpling that might draw your nipple a bit to the side, or higher or lower than it was before, or if fluid from your nipple isn't the same color as breast milk, report that to your doctor ASAP. There could be a look to a portion of the skin over the breast that has the indentations similar to the surface of an orange (not the color of it). That needs to be reported to your doctor, too. It's so important, as you have seen in some patients, that early treatment occurs. Well, I couldn't get off the "soap box" until I taught it....... hope you don't mind.......