Topic: Anyone with 10 cm tumor?

flannelette wrote:

I am able to ask this question now, almost 2 years after diagnosis.

My mammogram showed a 10 cm (6 inch) area of IDC. My paperwork got screwed up at my breast assessment centre, and my biopsy was not for 3 months! Surgery one month later. Before I went in to have the mast., my surgeon stood at the foot of my gurney, and I said to him "You are concerned about metastases". and he just said yes. Next morning he came to see me, said it was only about 4" of what looked like a bunch of DCIS mixed in with IDC. good news, I thought he'd come especially to tell me.

One month later, seeing him for the pathology report, sat there crying. In he bounces & says "margins clear, no lymph involvement (he took out 6) and no vascular involvement". yea! i jumped up & pumped my fist into the air each time.

The only bad part was i had (in Canada) a 9 out of 9 for bad cancer behaviour - ie quick division.

All this had happened in one year, since th last mammogram. He even looked at the old mmgm to see if there had been some mistake - but no, was not visiible.

2 years later - no local reoccurance. My surgical oncologist no longer needs to see me to check & says I can have reconstruction - (not).

Of course I do see the medical oncologist every 6 months.

maybe I do have metastses, but so far no symptoms, and i knock on wood each time I think Ihave none.

This is an enigma, and a mystery, and i thank my lucky stars every day. By the way, nobody, not the surgeon, - nobody - made me feel hopeless, except I kept thinking that by their silence Id won the booby prize(black humor is good)

Right after seeing the surgeon for the first time the nurse navigator came out with me and said "SOMEBODY has to tell you this isn't a death sentence"

I ponder all this, wondering what happened? it's a mystery to me. Maybe it's not so unusual?

Anyone here have this experience.? I did have the works - chemo, rads, arimidex.

My pic here is very old - I have long shaggy/half-spiked silver hair now, and am ridiculously optimistic. (But still do knock on wood, lest i disturb the tree spirits)