A place to greet and meet newbies to stage III
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Shycat- Your post is so true. My friend had minimal treatment for bc said to me before I chose to have my ovaries removed, "it's always something" ...she looked at me with disgust and was referring to the heavy treatment I've had in comparison to hers...like I was purposely torturing myself unnecessarily. I'm trying to survive stage 3 bc while she has her head in the cloulds about the seriousness of it. I'm done ranting.
I hope all newbies are doing ok!
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shycat, I kinda agree with you. I just started on this journey and I kinda feel the same way. Can't help it. I joined the surgery thread but mostly people were just concerned about mastectomy's and getting on with life. In my case, I have to deal with that and life dangling in front of you. Anyways, I can't help it. Wish I was stage 1.
I'm on day 3 and a little tired. Not too much of an appetite, at least for anything good
I want cheesecake!!I've noticed that my lymph nodes get a little swollen after chemo. Anybody else notice this?
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It is hard being a stage 3 as it is so close to 4 and my hat's off to these sisters!!
I am curious to see how big the line inside of me is, I know it's 36-38 cm but when it got put in I was looking at the monitor and my heart. I find looking when procedures like this interesting and I am learning something. I am sure the feeling of the line coming out will be minor and not the same as when the breast drains came out.
My SE are starting to show up. Have had bad hot flashes, especially during the night. My head gets all sweaty and then I am cold. The pains and aches are slowly beginning but it will all be better in a couple of days.
DD - I had a random lymph node on my neck that was swollen for about 24hrs+ but it went away. Check for fever, call your MO and keep an eye on it.
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Hi ladies, I'm a newbee here, I'm going to go back and read about all of you but here's my story. Last Feb I jumped out of the shower and started blow drying my hair and noticed my left breast looked a bit dimpled. Kinda like cellulite but I'm only an A cup and don't have cellulite on my boobs. I'd had a mammogram just a few months before and was pretty good about having 1 every year since I turned 40. So I go to my PCP who referred me to a BS and she ordered a CT and it showed a barely suspicious area on my breast but 2 enlarged lymph nodes. So she biopsied the breast and node and on Feb 14 called me with dx of ILC of both. The MRI then showed extranodal extension of the node so she sent me right to the MO who gave me a stage 2b dx and I began chemo. Finished that end of June. Had my BMX last Thursday and got my path
report yesterday and was shocked to learn that 10 of 11 nodes still
have
active cancer cells. Not what I was hoping for, anyway I've joined you
stage 3C ladies and I was freaked out when I first got home. I'm still
trying to absorb it all. I knew of 2 nodes for sure all along, and she said she removed 11
at surgery and she thought they looked large so I was even prepared for
the stage 3 part, but I never though they'd all be active. That's the
part I'm having to digest. I'm hoping they'll just put me on an
aromatase inhibitor, I don't think I could handle more chemo right now. I don't care for my MO so I'm going to start with a new one as soon as I get the appt. which my BS is working on. In the meantime I'm going to try and learn as much as I can about my options so I can go in prepared.Anyway, hello ladies, nice to meet you all even if it is under such lousy circumstances.
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Hi Genny, welcome from your other sister! Feel wierd saying that. but this place is so full of information and support. On days like these past few days where I'm just feeling down digesting everything, it makes me feel less alone.And then it makes me feel up again. Did you have a lumpectomy or any lymph nodes removed before chemo? I just started chemo...2nd AC.
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Hi Genny, We've chatted before - not sure which thread, but I was dx'd just before you and had surgery in February. I just finished chemo and I start rads on 9/9 (after an oopherectomy on 9/2). I also had dimpling - but I ignored it for a year... probably wouldn't be stage III if I had addressed it right away, but who knows.
I can't believe your pathology after chemo...I'd be blown away too. I'm sorry.... I hope your new MO is awesome and I hope whatever they decide for treatment is manageable for you.
Welcome to the forum.
Jen
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Hi Jen, yes we have talked before, maybe the starting chemo in March thread? Did they do any type of scans or anything after you finished chemo? It occurred to me that I might not even know about the active cells if I'd had surgery 1st and chemo 2nd. It may not be that unusual and maybe that's what the aromatase inhibitor is meant to take care of. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself. I called to set up an appt with the other oncologist but they took my name and no one has called me back yet. Anyway, thanks for welcoming me, hope your rads go ok, I'll be starting that soon.
Diva, before chemo she just did a core biopsy of the breast and the lymph node. Hope your chemo is going ok, are you doing 4 rounds of A/C and 4 of Taxotere? Are you experiencing much fatigue yet? For me that was the worse SE. Hope yours goes smoothly with as few SE as possible. I highly recommend icing your hands and feet during the Taxol/Taxotere tx's. I bought 8 bags of frozen peas and put 2 on each foot wrapped with ace bandages and then just squished my hands into the peas. Brought em' home and put them in the freezer for next time. I was one of the few on the chemo thread that didn't get any neuropathy. A few ridges in my fingernails but that was it. You are right, don't know how I would have gotten thru the last 6 months without these threads. Anyway, thanks for the welcome.
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Genny - I haven't had any scans yet - finished chemo on 8/4, have follow up with MO next week. Will ask about scans then. But I had a complete ALND - no nodes left to be infected! Five were positive for cancer...we knew about two or three after my PET scan before surgery.
I didn't ice during Taxol - no neuropathy for me either. I took B6 and l-glutamine pretty religiously....
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Genny,
Sorry your path report was scarier than you expected. Thinking about positive nodes is what keeps me up at night.
My MO & BS & RO, all said the rads & AI take care of the leftover random cells.
I did convince my MO to order 2x a year Zometa. That makes me feel like I am doing one more thing to prevent mets.
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Hi Everyone. I'm not sure which category I belong to really. I have not confirmed it with my BS but I had 2 nodes positive after my lumpectomy and then decided to do the mastectomy due to dirty margins. They found one more but also said another one has small "specs" in it and they don't usually count those. My BS likes to make written notes and I thought I saw IIIa on something. So I really don't know if I had 4 or 3 nodes that could be considered positive. Kind of like your horoscope - I'm on the cusp?
Jenn I did the same thing. I saw my breast was flat in one spot below my nipple. I looked and there was actually a mole there that was horizontal. It was flesh colored and I thought it was strange. I did feel a small lump so I called my GYN and couldn't get in for a few months (3 I think). When I went she felt it and said it was fibroidcystic. I thought ok, and promptly didn't get the mammogram. Two years later I went back! For all I know I might have been dealing with DCIS stage 0 or something. At the very least not as many nodes involved if at all. I can't beat myself up about it, just glad I took care of it at all. Saved my life.
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Genny5775,
Sorry you have to be here but you will find a ton of information and support. I wish I had found this site before all my treatments. I had looked at so much stuff on the internet that I was upsetting myself so I stopped for almost a year. Found this site in June of this year, a year after finishing chemo and almost a year after radiation. There is a thread called Breast implant sizing 101 on here that is very helpful for deciding about what type of implant to get. I had my rt mastectomy with TE placed on Jan 08, 2013 and then my reconstruction the following Jan. I am going back in Oct for some revisions of the implant and FG. I had started chemo a month after my mastectomy and then radiation for 6 weeks and then I started on Tamoxifen in Sept 2013. Just started Femara about 10 days ago. There is so much support and information here and so many women with a lot of positive nodes that are doing well and give us stage 3 gals a lot of hope for the future. It has been almost 2 yrs since my diagnosis and I am feeling better every day. Best of luck to you, stay strong and informed!!!
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kathec, the taco thing is pretty funny.
I didn't notice it when I wrote the post. Wouldn't it be great if we were being infused with tacos instead of taxol !0 -
A taco sounds about good now....I had oreo cookies and they tasted icky. My taste buds are going...can't believe oreo didn't taste good. I am so craving sweets.
Tess, thanks for mentionning the Breast Implant thread. Will be needing that.
Does anybody have really hard scars from their ALND? My scar is super hard and tight. I've been told to massage it.
Anybody else experience this, what was done about it, did massaging work, oils?? I wish they could laser everything back to normal.
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JVF, i had to go back and read about tacos! too funny! it was sbelizabeth who wanted to be signed up! too funny! i just assumed some of your friends were bringing tacos to have with you during infusion! guess what i just had for dinner!
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oops! Sorry sbelizabeth ! I'm being flaky as usual. No one over brought tacos during treatment. I was always hungry during infusions and would grab my IV pole and wander to the snack area frequently. I was in a huge treatment room and we were all in separate cubicles. Once, when returning from a snack run I actually got lost and couldn't find my cubicle. To make matters worse the nurse pointed out my cubicle and then I told her it was the wrong cubicle. Of course it was the right cubicle but my chemo brain refused to believe her. Kathec, that sounds like a great dinner. I have developed a taco craving tonight. Guess I'll make them for dinner tomorrow.
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Hi all. I'm not new to being a stage III since I was diagnosed in July 2013, but I'm new to this web site so thought I'd say hello in this thread.
Genny, my story is similar to yours. I saw a bit of nipple retraction 1 day but didn't think too much of it because it was right where I had a scar from a surgical biopsy. Besides, it was gone the next day, I couldn't feel a lump, I'd had a clear mammogram a couple months before, and my GYN hadn't felt anything on a manual exam a couple months before. A little bit of denial goes a long way. I admit it. I finally went to the doctor a couple months after I saw the retraction because the "normal" dense area in my left breast had started to feel larger than the similar area in my right breast. It was ILC like you have. The tumor was 5x8cm so it was a big sucker. Nobody tells you there's a type of BC that doesn't show up on mammograms and doesn't feel like a lump. My docs assure me that coming in a few months earlier wouldn't have made any difference.
At the moment my quandary is reconstruction. I had wanted just implants, but found out that those have a high rate of failure after radiation. I sure wish the PS I saw last year before my mastectomy would have mentioned that. I'd have started the expansion process then. So now I'm stuck with one of the flap procedures which I really didn't want. I'm not a candidate for the abdominal ones because of my ovarian cancer surgery. The PS I saw in June (different guy from last year) is recommending a lat flap with an implant on the irradiated side, and just an implant on the "good" side. I have another appointment with him next week to discuss other possible options since I'm not thrilled about removing my lat muscle from performing its normal duties. I'll go with it if nothing else sounds better though.
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Hi, I just found out my mom has what is probably stage 3 IDC. We are meeting with a surgeon today and what I know so far is that she has a 6-10 cm tumor, described as poorly differentiated, and the one lymph node that they checked during her biopsy was positive. I don't know ER/PR status yet. My mom is 80 years old and has mild-moderate Alzheimers so limited understanding of what is going on. Does anyone know how one usually proceeds in this kind of situation? I assume the surgeon/oncologist will give us more info but just wondering if anyone has been or known someone in this situation. Thanks.
BTW I had DCIS and had BMX in March (BRCA+) and I'm feeling fine. My mom's situation seems so different to mine as to almost be a different disease. I did not need chemo or radiation.
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Good Morning,
Well 1 week ago today I had my lumpectomy and sentinal node removal.
Today was my app't for the pathology and to get my stitches out. I have IDC grade 3...I am sure there is more but the Dr. didn't say.
My tumour was over 5cm and he was aggressive with the margins. I have large clean margins (G cup so he had lots to work with
)He tested the first node and it was positive, the next node didn't look like a node and it tested negative....but because it looked odd he removed it. The path came back positive. He thinks I may eventually have to go back in and have 1-2 more removed.
I don't have drains, but I seem to be leaking a bit, he says that's normal It will take 3 weeks to see the Oncologist, chemo is next
Tomorrow is the funeral for my little brother. He was 42, fought sarcoma for two years and lost. My heart is breaking but I have to go on...
I have two beautiful smart daughters. My eldest is 19 and starting her 2nd year of University to be a clinical psychologist. My little one is 10 and she will be in grade 5 this year. I celebrated 25 years with my dh, my high school sweetheart. Our dog is a red and white cocker spaniel called Daisy...
I am 47 and a home child care provider in my home. Presently I have 3 toddlers full time. I really need to add 2 more, as 2 are starting school in Sept., but with cancer now in my life and not knowing how chemo is I can't take on any new kids...difficult financially for us. Is there a pattern for chemo to know when you'll be sick? Or is it different for everyone? I really need to keep working and ideally would book the chemo for a Friday so I can be ill on the weekend. Wishful thinking?
Even though my app't went okay today, I'm scared.....
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Hello and welcome! You really need to speak with your medical oncologist about this. He/she is the only one who can truly tell you what will be best for you during your treatment. We can all share our stories, but everyone's is different and we are not doctors.
Some of it will depend on the types of chemo used. During my A/C, I received chemo on Thursday, felt fine through Saturday. Saturday night started to crash from the steroids wearing off and was basically out of commission for the next 4 days. Days 7-10 my Oncologist had me on what I called "house arrest," as it is this point during each treatment period that my immune system was the most vulnerable. No stores, large crowds or sick people allowed.
It is different for each patient and each oncologist as to what is acceptable. Some women worked right through their treatments. I am sure others will be along with their experiences, but it is truly up to you and your oncologist to come up with a plan.
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With A/C I had treatment on Friday and within 2 hours of getting home I would crash and stay that way through Tuesday. Monday I would not feel the nausea anymore but very very fatigued. I found staying hydrated and taking the anti nausea meds helped a lot. Rest as much as you can too.
I did go back to work on Wednesday and worked for the next 10 days to make up for the days lost.
With Taxol it's been just the fatigue (starts on Sunday - Tues/Wed) and messed up taste buds.
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Lori, I had TAC, and arranged my treatments for Wednesdays. I felt fine until Friday, when I would feel like I had the flu without the sore throat, fever, and cough. Tired, achy, and muddle-headed. I sat in the recliner all day and watched Downton Abbey re-runs. By Saturday I was feeling better, Sunday I was fine, and Monday I went back to work. I work full-time at a desk.
My sister, who had the same chemo (crappy genes, I guess) had her chemo on Thursday afternoon after work. She stayed home Fridays, and was back to work (at a desk) Monday.
Everyone's different. Some women are wiped out by their chemo treatments and go on disability. Others--like my sister and me--tolerate it pretty well.
I'm sorry to read about your little brother's death. This is a dark time for you, friend. There will be tough days ahead, but as far as the breast cancer and its treatment, it's a huge speed bump and you'll get to the other side.
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Like Robin I had my AC infusions on Thursdays. I took both Thursday and Friday off for each AC infusion. Saturday was the worst day but I was able to recover enough by Monday and be in the office. I continued taking Thursdays off for 12 weekly taxols and was able to work from home on Fridays and be at the office on Monday - Wednesday.
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Oh Lori, I'm so sorry for you, BC and now the passing of your brother. And a 10 year old daughter, my thoughts and prayers are with you. I had 6 rounds of taxotere and cytoxan every 3 weeks. The first 2 rounds were fine, I had a little nausea, ate soda crackers and took Compazine. I even ran a 5k 2 days after my 3rd tx, then the fatigue set in. For me it was cumulative, the further into tx's I got the more fatigued I got. I did work all the way thru, I cut hair in a retirement home and am usually booked solid so while I worked hard I could only handle 6 hrs and I only worked 3 days/wk, then babysat my newborn granddaughter 1 day/wk. By the 4th round that was pretty much all I did, work come home lay down. Of course that was me, everyone is different. Toddlers are so much work, I understand the money needs but it may be tough, especially if you have to do it full time. Could you maybe watch older kids before and after school? Just a thought, good luck to you, it is all very scary, I'm still scared all the time.
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Gabriella, I am half ur mom's age. I had a lumpectomy bcuz the US showed a 3 cm tumor. The surgeon took out 10 cm bcuz I felt there was more despite the US. I was correct. If everything would have been seen in US I would have had mastectomy first or chemo to shrink it. That's my story.
Lori, I am so sorry for your brother's passing and to have to go through this all at once. I'm on AC right now. I have only had 2 tx so far. Treatment day is Thursday, and I am out of it that day bcuz I take Ativan. Fri-sun I am not bad, Monday fatigue and anxiety kick in through thru wed, thur is better. The 2 nd tx was more tiring and I've been told that it will be cumulative as I progress. So far, I keep on going out no matter what wk it is and I have 2 kids, I keep telling them to wash themselves.
I have bad days and good days.I am scared too but then I think it 1 day at a time. We will get thru this.
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I feel psychologically like crap. My WBC were 0.7 so I couldn't have AC #3 this week. I feel like this cancer is just spreading. I know I had positive margins and I itch and have little pains where cancer was. I can't have surgery now. And chemo is being delayed. I just feel like jumping off a bridge. My 8 yr old daughter is sleeping next to me and I' m just crying. I feel like I'm going nowhere.
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Dancingdiva - I hope this is just a rough patch for you. If you did not get clean margins try to think that radiation will take care of that. A delay in chemo may be upsetting but your counts will come back up and you will get your chemo. One week will not make a difference in the bigger picture. I had my dose reduced and I thought it was the pits too, but now looking back at it I am thankful, I would not have wanted to be killed by the "cure". Try to cuddle with your daughter and get a good nights sleep.
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Dancingdiva, maybe the chemo is hitting the cancer cells as hard as it's hitting your WBCs. Take a breather and get some rest if you can. Cancer treatment is an emotional roller-coaster and unfortunately, a rather long ride. Hang in there.
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thank you for your words of encouragement. So far, I feel as though I have been really strong considering dx and I have not broken down too much, which is astounding considering my personality. sometimes, I feel like I'm almost living in lala land, being too positive or living like this is not happening and most times I feel like that is better, because when I look at all the tests, facts, etc. it's overwhelming and u can't help and get depressed.
Kinda hit a low tonight and have cried and let some steam out with hubby for the past few hours. I know I need to get sleep. Just filled a garbage pail full of tissue.
Thank u for listening and being there.
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Dacingdiva, after my lumpectomy and axillary node dissection, my breast and armpit ached and burned something fierce from time to time. I was convinced the cancer was growing and my chemo wasn't working.
I finally asked my onc about it, in tears, because I thought she'd tell me bad news. She said, "the surgical sites will hurt for a while. The nerves are trying to regenerate, which is painful, and the chemo will slow down he healing."
I had some really rough patches too, when I thought I'd never stop crying and shaking, and once I thought if I could just climb under the bed and hide...!
Night time is a miserable time for "cancer radio" to be on all the time, sleepless and fearful. If you have a prescription for Ativan, please take it when your anxious and scared.
Almost three years later I'm doing very well, and although "the shivers" descend from time to time, they're minor and over quickly. My life has moved forward. Yours will too. Best wishes to you.
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DancingDiva, hope you're feeling better this morning. I am in the throws of this miserable disease and I can relate for sure. Everyone tells me how strong I am and how well I'm doing and inside I just want to curl in a ball. But we can't, we have life to take care of, I just try to put one foot in front of the other each and every day. This disease has changed everything about me. But if I didn't have the occasional meltdown I would explode. So cry it out when you need to, fill the waste basket with tissues, take your Ativan or Xanax and then pull it together and think of all you have to fight for. You have that beautiful 8 year old daughter. I, luckily was blessed with my first granddaughter one month before dx and I need to watch her grow up. I copied this off of one of the moderator pages, maybe it will help ease your fears.
During breast cancer treatment, you may have different kinds of pain in your chest.
- After surgery, you may feel a mixture of pain and numbness in your
chest in the area where surgery was done. This is because nerves were
unavoidably bruised, stretched, or cut during surgery. As the nerves
grow back, you may feel strange, crawling sensations in your chest.
Right after surgery, you may feel brief shooting pains in your chest.
This is also because the nerves are irritated.
0 - After surgery, you may feel a mixture of pain and numbness in your
