Triple Negative, Stage 1 Thinking NO CHEMO
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Mountain Mia, Did your doctor say that 2.9 cm was a small size? Do you mean "mm"? I have 2.1 cm and was told that was well into the size for chemo treatment. I'd love to avoid it somehow.....
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dono7392, this is what I said: "IDC tumor 1.5 cm and DCIS spread 2.9 cm." Yes, the DCIS was about twice the size as the IDC. The prescription for chemo was based on the IDC.
My understanding is that for any triple negative greater than .5cm, the standard of care is to recommend chemo, so yours definitely falls into that range.
If you've read up on TNBC, you've seen that it can be very aggressive. Your own diagnosis of grade 3 is an indicator that yours likely is, too. Your notes don't say if you've had surgery yet or if you did, what kind. Either way, surgery (and follow-up radiation, if you have a lumpectomy) is used to address cancer cells in the breast. Chemo is used to address cells that may have migrated to other parts of your body. Likely you already know all this, and I don't mean to insult you by explaining. But because the TNBC is aggressive, chemo is the best way to reduce your risk of recurrence, either locally in the breast or elsewhere. You won't get another chance to hit it this hard.
We all would have loved to avoid chemo. Though my own doctor was not insistent for me to do so, if you polled almost any other TNBC patient, they would say theirs was!
Good luck with the process and decision-making. There is a lot of help here for you to access, and a lot of support as you go through.
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Newly diagnosed with TNBC. I am starting chemo on Friday 2/7, 8 rounds once every 2 weeks. I will also get the wonderful Neulasta Onpro put on my arm before I leave after each infusion. This is a timed self injected form of protein to boost the white blood cell count. I was dx'd with MS back in 2000 so that medication has a habit of messing with the white count any way. I have to stop that treatment during my chemo. Then I'll have the lumpectomy, wait a month, then 5-6 weeks of daily (5 days in a row) radiation. Needless to say all of this has really kind of scared the bajeebers right out of me.
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Dear GailKS,
Welcome to the BCO community. We are sorry for your cancer. We are glad that you reached out to our members to share your story. We hope that you will find support and information here that will help you along the way. We wish you the best as your chemo starts. Keep us all posted on how things go and let us know if we can be a help in any way.
The Mods
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Gail, have a peek at "Calling all TNs" -- very active thread of other TNs! Sorry you are here, but welcome.
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Hi, I'm 48 & I have triple negative . I'm Starting AC-T chemo today 8/14/23 it's a scary thought, at 1st I was going to say no way to chemotherapy, & after talking to a few friends & learning more about it. I decided to go ahead & do it ! I'm super positive about the whole thing & yes also nervous, I bought some great wigs & some head wraps. I just want to get every cancer cell killed that I can
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