Diagnosed in November

Kim,

Good luck with your treatment Kim. I hope it all goes well for you. I managed to work all through my treatment as well as keep home life going with a then 4 and 6 year old. It was not easy and some days better than other by overall it was much better than I thought it was going to be, Keeping positive, eating well, doing a bit of exercise and resting when you need to all helped me. Take all the offers of help you get.

Thank you for all the encouragement!  Now that the decision is made I am ready to get it done. I am to have surgery to have the port put in tomorrow ...... if they go ahead with surgeries because of the weather we are having. 

Although I was reading on another post about not delaying chemo.  My lumpectomy was Oct 24, 2013 ( I had a saroma and had to delay biopsy for my nodes)  & my lymph node biopsy was Dec 19, 2013. Have I missed my window?  It has taken a while to get where I'm at because of the Holidays, went back to first oncologist and then decided I needed to go for a 2nd opinion. 

As for my daughter, she is doing better.  She really is an amazing young lady & my 2 boys are pretty fantastic as well.  I am very proud of them. I am  lucky, I am very close to all 3 of my children. My husband served in the army for over 21 years and was gone for 3/4 of those years. So glad my husband is home now to be with me as we go through this.  Thank you for your support, kind words, and prayer for our family! 

I appreciate all the information and helpful ideas! 

God Bless!
KIM

The port surgery is NBD, I had mine on Monday and started chemo that Friday. The port was a rock star, it made everything so much easier. No more vein sticks thru the whole process! If you're starting chemo now and doing 8 rounds of DD you'll be done by summer :) you'll get your strength back and grow hair all summer, by fall you'll be over feeling and looking like a "patient". Plan a wonderful, relaxing vacation for summer, you'll have something to look forward to! A few weeks after I finished chemo 14 of my family members went to the beach for two weeks (between chemo  & rads) it was glorious! I got a tan on my bald head, I felt so FREE after all that had happened. I look forward to your posts when you get to that point, too. 

Kim, the shot that you go back for is most likely Neulasta; it's to boost the white blood cell production. Some people complain of a lot of bone pain after it. (I had very little pain from it)

Kim,

Edited by 123Donna - Feb 05 2014 at 8:25am

all of my blood draws were from my port and completely painless. They should have a nurse on Oncology that can do it - ask if they come at your arm with a needle. The reason for the port is no more needles in your arms! You get a bag of steroids first before the chemo, this makes most people sleepy. The steroids then kept me up at night so I took sleeping meds sometimes the days following. They'll give you a regimen of anti nausea meds, take them like clockwork - write it down so you don't forget. You should not throw up! If you do call in, there are other options and you can change immediately to one that will work. Queasy, icky yes - vomiting, no. Drink water! Tons of it! Imagine flushing that chemo out of your system with every sip, you'll drink more :) the Neulasta shot itself is not painful, but I had bone pain afterwards.  If it hurts, keeps you from getting rest take pain pills! Do not suffer needlessly, there's no reason. I got Biotene (no alcohol) mouthwash and used it religiously from day one and did not suffer from mouth sores much at all. Eat whatever you feel like, when you feel like it in the days following treatment. 3 days after was usually the time I felt the worst. Week two between treatments was ok, I worked  and lived my life (but avoided crowded spaces where there might be sick people)  REST when you feel like it! Rest is healing, do not overdo. If you're pre-menapausal, there could be hot flashes. Mine got so bad my wonderful husband put a window unit air conditioner in our bedroom! We have central air, but I wanted it cold at night! 

Hi Kim,

Hello MLindaG,

I know many feel that Dose Dense is the only way to go but here is a recent article which is somewhere on this forum that speaks to the different regimens.

Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy for Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: Maximizing Pathologic Complete Response Rates to Improve Prognosis

By William M. Sikov, MD


Dose-Dense vs. Standard Chemotherapy Regimens

Advances in adjuvant chemotherapy during the past 20 years have resulted in greater improvements in outcomes in patients with ER-negative cancers than for those with ER-positive cancers,8,9 and many of these same approaches have been adopted in the preoperative setting. Although there is no standard NACT regimen for TNBC, administration of both an anthracycline and a taxane, sequentially or concurrently, is warranted, even in patients with relatively early-stage disease (clinical T2N0 or higher), and results in a pCR rate of 30% to 40%. Dose-dense paclitaxel—whether administered at a lower dose weekly or a higher dose every 2 weeks—is superior to paclitaxel administered every 3 weeks,10 which is consistent with fi ndings in the metastatic and adjuvant settings,11-13 whereas docetaxel appears to be both more effective and better tolerated when administered every 3 weeks.13 Representative regimens are listed in the sidebar.


NACT Regimens for TNBC

◾Doxorubicin (60 mg/m2) or epirubicin (90 mg/m2) in combination with cyclophosphamide (600 mg/m2) (AC or EC) every 2 (dose-dense AC or EC) or 3 weeks for four cycles followed (or preceded) by paclitaxel (80 mg/m2) weekly for 12 weeks14
◾AC or EC every 2 or 3 weeks for four cycles followed (or preceded) by paclitaxel (175 mg/m2) every 2 weeks for four cycles or by docetaxel (100 mg/ m2) every 3 weeks for four cycles15-17
◾Docetaxel (75 mg/m2), doxorubicin (50 mg/m2), and cyclophosphamide (500 mg/m2) (TAC) every 3 weeks for six cycles18
◾For patients in whom administration of an anthracycline is contraindicated because of coexisting medical (especially cardiac) issues, neoadjuvant administration of docetaxel (75 mg/m2) and cyclophosphamide (600 mg/m2) (TC) every 3 weeks for six cycles is reasonable based on its documented effi cacy in the adjuvant setting,19 although data supporting its use in the neoadjuvant setting are sparse.


For the sequential regimens, order of administration doesn’t appear to affect treatment efficacy; a randomized phase II study in patients with unresectable HER2-negative cancers, SWOG 0800, is addressing this question. Studies in which a novel agent is added to the taxane component often administer that portion of treatment first in order to better observe any improvement in clinical response. Another advantage of administering weekly paclitaxel (my preferred taxane regimen) first is its relatively modest acute toxicities, allowing the patient to “ease” into chemotherapy.