To Chemo or Not to Chemo

Marla wrote: Thank you all for your replies. All of your advice and encouragement helps tremendously. I've decide to go ahead with the chemo (TC 4 times), but I will do the treatments in Florida. Better to have sunshine than grey days. I don't look forward to it and I hate to think of what those toxins might be doing to the rest of my body. I don't believe there has been enough long term research done with this yet. But I guess I was just born in the wrong century. I'll keep pushing through, thanks again for all your kind words. God bless all of you. Marla

Marla,

I read your post hoping to find an answer to my own question! I just had a lump. Tues 11/17. I have been diagnosed w/ stage 1 invasive dcis and TNBC my path on my lymph came back today neg. my non- invasive part of my cancer measured 0.2 but my invasive portion was the size of a clemetine orange (forgot to ask actual size today - was happy to just hear that margins were clear)! Is chemo the only answer...my surgeon said she could not give me a definite yes or no I must talk to an oncologist to get her opinion... any thoughts?????

Dear Maria,

I wrote a brief message last night about my cancer let me follow-up w/ more details.


I am a 44 years old and was diagnosed on 10/26/08:
Ductual carcinoma insitu / invasive
Stage 1
Triple Negative
size of cancer = 0.2cm

invasive component grade 2
in-situ component grade 3

My Ki-67 = 5%

I had a wide incision lumpectomy w/ a sential node biopsy on 11/17. My margins came back clear and my sential node biopsy came back clear.

My surgeon cannot determine if chemo will be needed, she said it is a tough call that will be have to be determined by the oncologists.

I have a strong history of breast cancer but the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 that my mom had performed had the results of NO MUTATION DETECTED. My mom had DCIS in 2007 in her right breast that resulted in a mastectomy and reoccurence in 2009 of tubualr in her left breast that was treated w/ a lumpectomy - mom my is in her mid 60's. My grandmother had a bi-lateral mastectomy  - her first occurence was when she was 47 (her first breast was removed) and then reoccurence 2 years later and her other breast was removed- we do not know what type of breast cancer she had. She passed away in her mid 80's of bone cancer.

I am so unsure of what my treatment will be and I was just wondering what any of you survivors think or would recommend. My worse fear is REOCCURENCE not CHEMO.

Thank you in advance for any help/ suggestions or words of wisdom.

Lisa K.
Illinois

Hi I'm trying to get my act together to get of town on Monday. Saying good-bye for 4-6 months to my kids and especailly my grandkids is a very difficult emotional rollercoaster. It's hard to say Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Valentine's Day, Happy Birthday and maybe Happy Easter. It just makes me cry. I know they will visit, don't know if it's a good idea to have visitors under the age of 5 in my weaken condition of being able to fight off infection. We will just have to see how I react to the chemo.

Pam,

Pam, The lower the percent the better...the average percent is 20% according to what my pathologist wrote on my report.

Carol,

Carol,