Anyone with 10 cm tumor?
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Hi Sunny,
Sorry to hear you can join our club, but welcome! My tumor was in my right breast (I felt the lump) and had a mastectomy 3 days after diagnosis. I started chemo about a month later, after an uneventful healing time, and now I have just started radiation, even though my nodes were clear. Due to the tumor size and my age (43) the oncologist suggested I do the works just to be safe. I know in some cases they do the chemo first to shrink the tumor in order to be able to do a lumpectomy. I don't know where they they draw the line and do a mast instead. This would be a good question to ask your surgeon or onc. I don't think they will know the exact size until after they remove it. I'm doing fine as far as I can tell, and others with large tumors are, too. It is hard not to freak out a little, but we are here for you.
Keep in touch!
Shelley
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Wow flannelette i cannot beleive you di not have any cancerous nodes my oncologist was so positive i would have node involvement because my tumor was 9.2 cm and she was right i had 17/25. She said large tumors usually have had lots of time to grow and like to spread when they get that big.
I hope you are coming along well-Hugs
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HI Beth1965 - I haven't looked at this thread in a long time - thanks for the good vibes. Is that your cat? a beauty. Yes, My surgeon was very quiet about it but I think he thought I was a goner. After I met him and his resident and they decided I needed a MX, and we went out of the room, the nursenavigator came rushing out to me and said "Somebody's got to tell you this isn't a death sentence!"
Just recently I got another copy of my pathology report and I had a high degree (maybe 70%) of mucinous carcinoma. I only recenty learned that it's a big fat slob in the bc dept. and doesn't often launch out, except I also had 9 out of 9 for bad cell behaviour. Beats me. But I thank the universe fr that gift about every day.. Cheers to you, and hope you're doing well. am wondering if you're still in chem or rads or where you are in the program?
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hello!
I had 2 large tumors. 1 was 7.5 cms and another was 10.8 cms. Diagnosed 6/7/16. Mastectomy 7/14/16.
Chemo starts soon. Any advice from other large tumor folks is greatly appreciated! Glad to find this thread :
Thx!!
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Hi Annie-B-7-14
I hope you don't mind if I ask, did the mass hurt?
The doctors found mine at 5cm and it's been 2 weeks since staging was completed (aug 21) and my right chest is starting to hurt more often. I mean apart from the weight loss (from stress or something) I'm starting to feel the weight of the tumor. I can only assume that it's gotten bigger.
treatment is supposed to start end of next week. but if i see my oncologist again this week maybe the treatment will have to start earlier because of the tumor. (And a patch of skin above it is red).
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Hi ladies!
I just got home from my post op appointment.
I curious if anyone who posted here before is still doing well!
I just had a single mastectomy on my right side last friday. It was a reoccurance. I went through all this last year, and in 16 month I developed an 8cm tumor... while taking tamoxifen. My sentinel node had micrometastasis of .4mm
I guess Im stage 3A from everything I have read. Im just really nervous that this sucker is so aggressive.
Anyone still in remission?
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This is my first post, and I wanted to share it with you fine ladies because I have a tumor that was 6 inches long on my left breast just underneath my pectoral muscle that made it very difficult to diagnose properly.
My mother was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in her late 60's, I am only 41!
I also have had ptsd for over a decade now, and that makes the traumatic news of an aggressive stage 3 breast cancer and double mastectomy even harder to face.
It was my family physician that found the lump in my armpit and left breast that I had mistaken as a pulled muscle. It was nothing short of his devotion to his patients and his unique understanding of my condition that literally saved my life! I pray for everyone facing a combination diagnosis to be that fortunate as well.
12 years ago I was 240 lbs and a triple d while pregnant with my son and we were sick the entire pregnancy and I couldn't breast feed him after surgery for the 22cm diameter full abdominal hernia he created trying to bust out! He was my 4th pregnancy in 5 years so it wasn't entirely his doing! I have 2 daughters that I had breastfed successfully for about 3 months each but I was told at the hospital to bind off and not to pump and dump my milk after the simultaneous c section birth and hernia repair. This resulted in severe complications causing me to loose over 100 lbs in a year after I refused to allow any mesh patch. I spent several years chasing misdiagnosis because several calcifications through my nipples and milk ducts that were all benign but obscured MRI results masking tumor inside nipple structure on right side.
With so much weight loss my breasts went down to a distorted c and the lack of mass was what made the 2nd of 4 tumors in my left breast visible through my skin. It was not until I had my inverted MRI at Lemmon Holton cancer center that they found the cancer on my right breast and in the lymph system on my left!
I go for treatment 7 on Tuesday and am currently hoping to be a candidate for a new skin saving mastectomy procedure after I finish chemotherapy. I look forward to sharing what I learn with you all, thank you for making me feel so welcome here!
I felt brave enough to share my story with all of you so together we can all encourage the ones we love to get tested at the first suspected abnormal symptoms!0 -
Welcome, Faithonfire! Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, personal experiences are such a good source of information and inspiration. We wish you the best with your continuing treatment, and look forward to seeing you on the boards!
The Mods
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FaithonFire - thanks for sharing your story! Thank goodness for your doctor! You will get through this!
It is SO HARD in the beginning. It does get a little better when you get into the routine. Sending all my best wishes to you!
I had a 6 cm tumor plus (Her 2 Pos) with 9 positive nodes and am approaching my SIX YEAR cancerversary in a few days.
One thing that brought me solace to me every day since diagnosis was -- my breast surgeon said to me, "We can cure you."
I had that printed on my wall in 10 inch letters. It is still there. I look at it every day and now I believe it!
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hi everyone,
I had a really bad day today at treatment and I think if I share why I might be able to help more people than I anticipated at the start of my journey.
I have a condition that makes conventional medical treatment in a facility setting an issue on catastrophic symptoms setting off pre exsisting symptoms, here is a good simple example.
I have had ptsd for over a decade now and sticking me in a tiny windowless room alone and telling me to wait with the door closed for someone to knock is NOT a good idea! Those things are very important to remember for people having bad reactions that can lead to bad actions if the patient cannot control them with proper training in advance.
I am one of the very few civilian cases that have dedicated the time and efforts to successfully apply this training and many other type of various tools and skills I have adapted from other severe but temporary diagnosis that included extensive duel life saving surgery for my son and I with his birth and my 22 cm hernia repair simultaneously done and more successful than anyone ever could have anticipated concerning our medical complications of an active kidney infection at the time of pregnancy.
In short, the fact that my body is currently doing what we can't fully explain is just as thrilling as it is frustrating for me as well as all who love me.
On my 7 th tamoxafin treatment today I didn't gain or loose weight, and my numbers still look like I'm not on treatments at all! I have a half inch of full hair regrowth, it's starting to feel good again! I picked up a bug this week too at a town fair and sound awful as my nose and eyes constantly weep and choke me up but cleared my chest x ray today and got treatment and a z pack to clear out my lungs so I can finish a sentence without making horrible noises in public I can't control!
It is bad enough to go through this, and I feel it is important to consider the emotional impact of the medical information presented to patients and their options or lack of them as their new reality in order to survive.
Thanks so much for caring and your support and encouragement makes the difference in my ability to endure it but I'm out of steam and have many articles to research as they amend my genetic profile and we go for the next round next week!
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sorry Denise
Chemo brain kept me from adding that I have visable mass reduction and the tumor has separated from the muscle in my armpit now almost completely, they aren't done evaluating x ray results but I can't wait to see what they are looking at. Initially they wanted at least 5 lymph nodes on my left out but we will just see about that now won't we?
I want to thank you for keeping me focused on my goals and giving me the encouragement I need to share some of the valuable lessons I had to learn the hard way. It is hard to explain but what I know about myself now would have made so much difference if I had only known and been acknowledged by the medical specialists nessicary to fix it! It is the hardest thing for me to forgive so I will keep working on it! Best of luck to you too
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Hi, I've posted my story on other threads but not on this one before but I'll add it here in case it's of any help to anyone. I somehow slipped through the net when it came to mammograms. I had them every two years after being diagnosed with very small calcifications at my first mammogram because the BS I consulted about the calcifications told me they would remain benign. If I'd known then what I know now........! But, as a lay person I didn't question this. At every mammogram I was told I was clear, no sign of trouble. I didn't know that calcifications don't go away, that at some stage they can turn malignant but that's clearly what happened. My life has actually been saved by a 2cm lump I found in my left breast as it had distorted the shape enormously.....I love that little lump, strange as it might seem! I went straight for investigations for that and, to my horror and shock, my right breast was one big tumour...ductal and lobular mixed. It wasn't palpable despite my own self exams and some exams by doctors because the whole breast was tumour so there was no comparison with normal tissue. The appearance was entirely normal.
I had BMX without recon within ten days and 29 nodes were removed and cancerous on the right side. The left sentinel was clear. Unfortunately a bone scan showed extensive mets to the bones, in every bone from skull to femur including the entire spine and every rib.
I count myself as lucky for a few reasons....1) the little lump on the left was in an obvious place on the breast, 2) the mets went to the bones and not organs because the bones have so far contained the tumours, 3) it's highly ER+ PR+ HER2- so I've been told that, although it's not curable it's treatable. I'm on Ibrance and Letrozole currently and am on a trial in Australia for these two drugs, although they've been in use in the US for, I believe, three years. Oh, and 4) in eleven months it hasn't progressed. It hasn't regressed but it hasn't progressed. 5) because I'm on a trial I'm monitored monthly and have scans every three months so I feel safe that if the mets do progressed, it will be picked up quickly.
I also count myself as lucky because my husband is supportive and has absolutely no issues with my lack of breasts and the dog's ears....they are terriers, I think....that I'm left with, and because I never felt so much love around me in my entire life. I must admit that friends have been a bit remiss, a lot have been unable to cope and have disappeared but I do have one totally staunch friend who is my rock and two or three others. I do use Facebook and I'm in a group which has nothing to do with breast cancer but everything to do with fun and it takes me out of the BC world, although I have posted my story in the group and have received enormous support there.
Because of the bone mets my life is very limited. Until the tumours regress I'm forbidden from doing exercise, walking too much and bending so I've had to learn how to be dependent on others...not my wish but that's how it has to be! I still have my sense of humour and fun, I live in a comfortable house and want for nothing so I count myself as very fortunate that if this had to happen I'm in a much better place than so many others.
Sending you all lots of hugs and wishes for everything good that could come your way
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Thanks so much for sharing that with us, it ment a lot to me!
I know I have been quiet for a while but I just got out of the emergency room yesterday and my Ct scan was clear so that's a load off my mind but does not solve my problem unfortunately.
I'm still staring at test results that flat out don't make sense because they do not show how my body is presenting on chemo in a way anyone else does.
Found out part of the reason why from genetics dept, I am braca 2 estrogen positive her2 negative and something else they cannot identify yet. They don't know what it means because they don't know what the gene they found does yet.
Ok, I'm sort of used to people not knowing what they are looking at when they see me in a medical setting but this is beyond what I suspected about myself in every way! It's almost as wierd as finding a birthmark even my own mother never knew I had since birth! I've never been bald so this was the first time we saw it!
Anyway, picked up a cough I couldn't shake and did a z pack of antibiotics after clearing a chest X-ray and getting treatment. Same story the next week, I'm bruising my ribs coughing and being told its nothing even when it halts speech so by week 3 of this I go in to get Ct scan because pain moving to back and only on one side...
All I could think about was the recent chemo switch from 4 drugs and a nuclear push every 2 weeks to just taxol weekly and the specific risk to lungs that made Benadryl nessicary at high doses for the first 3 weeks after switching. I am allergic to it and had bad reactions but could not refuse to take it sooner.
So I am curious about Halloween and hope I get to stay on schedule with my treatments. I have to get a tad more forceful with my oncologist because the dismissive attitude of serious side effects in light of verified cases specific to this drug needs to be accurately reported instead of snowing results by blaming anything except the drug for the same results!
I don't WANT to question the true motivation for drug brand loyalty and doctors that make decisions to use them despite other available drugs or case specific risks that may be fatal... if you can prove that was what caused it! Lucky for me I can! I am healthier than I should be for what I am going through but it sure does not feel that way to me recently.
I have a few teams of doctors all watching over each other on my case, and the lack of explanation I am getting on this is disturbing to say the least!
Between that and the shameful reluctance to properly address pain management after getting me to agree to chemo first by promising NEVER to ignore my pain when I report it, I wound up in the emergency room Friday because my doctor took the day off.
We will have a nice informative chat soon with my therapist the addiction specialist, but it's not easy to handle being treated as a pest because I refuse to accept I don't know as the answer to what is wrong with my body!
Don't be afraid to get the answers needed to save your life because someone else finds that inconvenient for them! I'd like to get paid to not do my job too but people don't die if I don't show up either!
I'll keep at it and let you all know how it goes... but I encourage everyone that is treated with anything less than the utmost respect in a medical setting to be firm and persistent in reporting it. These people work FOR you, and not the other way around just because you are sick and they are busy
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My ultrasound showed 0.7cm when they took biopsy. MRI 10 days later showed 8.6 cm. Surgeon still calls it "early stage" and says there is no rush with a surgery, within 6 weeks, cause "nodes are clear". So I'm supposed to sit and wait till they become not clear. Going to another hospital to get it done. But -- could it possibly be THIS much of a difference on ultrasound and MRI?
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