Starting chemo February 2020
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I’ve been on lasix for the past couple of weeks and my cough is getting better. Echos show that my EF has dropped 15% since pre chemo so my onc is holding further treatment (H/P) until that gets better. Feeling a bit discouraged. I had a complete response to Taxotere and would really like to continue treatment.
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mnsusan - sorry you're having such a rough time with the SEs. Don't get discouraged, I see people taking Herceptin breaks to allow their heart/lungs to recover is quite normal.
Hope you feel better soon. Hang in there! ❤
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micdpowers - that is a scare! I’m in the same boat as you, I want some normalcy, but don’t want Covid for so many reasons. Our high school (Vernon Hills) voted last night to start the year remote. My oldest is an incoming freshman, and I feel so bad this is how he’s starting high school. But I’m also relieved not to be forced to make that decision of our safety versus some normal life. Our grade schools have postponed their decision but I think they’ll go remote too. My 7th grade daughter will be devastated and my 3rd grade twins will be ok, but I’m not sure I’ll be ok trying to manage them.
Sweet talker - I’m so sorry Covid has hit your family so hard. It’s very real and scary.
AJminn3 - any news on your school? How’s your treatment going, you are in radiation right? any thoughts on it?
Mmorigan - I’m so happy to hear Kadcyla is treating you well. I might start next week and I’m reading mixed reviews in the groups. I haven’t heard from my oncologist, she just came back from a 3 month personal leave, but my breast surgeon told me they talked about me and that oncologist said I’m a “perfect case” for Kadcyla. My appt with her coincides with my next infusion, so I just don’t know if she will change the HP to Kadcyla that day, or what. Right now my schedule still shows Hp, but I imagine she’s getting up to speed with her patients, submitting insurance, etc.
I went to the plastic surgeon yesterday and he says I’m healing up well. The armpit incision from axillary node is annoying and my armpit drain is still in. Apparently those ones can take awhile to slow down. He did my one and only fill. I’m going smaller, which will allow for Diep and make me happy. I was pretty big before (34D) compared to my frame and I am finding these new littler breast so nice. I have enough that I don’t look flat, but they are easy to deal with. He basically told me we’ll “park them here” and see how I feel. Also, if I switch to Kadcyla, it will up to my oncologist when we can do reconstruction after I heal from radiation. I may be living with these expanders for awhile
I also start PT for lymphedema in August. So far my arm seems normal, but since I did this investigational microsurgery, I will be monitored and worked with to see if I develop it and track my results. Hopefully I never get it.
Send on your updates what’s going on with you all ladies and take care
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Morrigan- Glad to hear Kadcyla is tolerable! I remember when I could finally sleep on my side post surgery- it was glorious!
MNSusan- I’m sorry to hear your EF dropped. Hopefully you’ll be back on HP soon. That’s awesome that you had such a great response to taxotere! I certainly understand why you’d want to keep up on treatment. I have my MUGA on Monday and am curious to see where my EF is at.
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mnsusan - so sorry about the HR function. I feel like that is more common than I expected. And great that you had a full response to chemo, that means the HP is just back up, it’s not quite as vita
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Ladies, my Covid-19 tests have been sched. for tomorrow and Saturday. Hoping for negative results so I can sched. surgery again.
Also, look how much hair has come in.
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scatteredenergy - good luck on the test, I really hope it's negative and you can move on with treatments. And OMG, i'm so jealous of your hair. Mine is growing in so slowly. It's peach fuzz all around but just slow.
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I’m finally feeling a little normal after my surgery. The first few days were hell. I hate the drains and having my DD chest suddenly a B/C was a shock. Not just waiting flirt pathology results before I can relax a little bit.
SE, so jealous! I have a 5 o’clock shadow at best0 -
Thank you ladies. My hair always grew fast so I'm glad chemo didn't take that away lol.
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good luck scattered energy hope.your test is negative. You're hair is growing so fast, it looks great.
Dysonsphere - glad you're feeling better, sorry you had a rough few days post surgery. Those drains are the worst.
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Dysonsphere- those drains are a pain. They’ll be out soon. I also went from a DD to a B. In the end I do like having B’s vs my DD’s and I do have to say I enjoy being able to go braless, something never possible before! It really helps going through radiation while my skin is irritated.
Scattered- your hair looks great! I’ve been surprised at how fast my hair has been starting to grow back. I hope you’re cleared for surgery soon!
Hray- how are you doing?! Are you still in the hospital or have you released and are recovering? I hope you’re doing well
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I'm proof that this 14 days quarantine is crap. The virus doesn't have a calendar lol
I am positive still and I have to retest in 7 days but I don't know if I will. I'm tired of that stick up my nose. I might wait longer.
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Scattered- oh no! Have you had many symptoms? Covid is so fascinating to me. I’ve heard of people having positive tests for different amounts of time after the initial test. The 14 days doesn’t seem to be an accurate window for all. How frustrating. I can imagine you don’t want to have the swab up your nose every week! And not to mention you have to keep putting off your surgery.
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I have the same symptoms i had during chemo. I'm tired, runny nose and a cough. That's it. I had diarrhea for like three days only.
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SE, I'm glad you have mild symptoms but I can't imagine how frustrating it must be to be putting off your treatment.Sending positive thoughts your way!
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scatteredenergy - I'm so sorry, this is crazy and so frustrating. What a disappointment. I will send all my positive vibes to you that this week your symptoms disappear and you test negative next week. Covid is so unpredictable, and I'm so happy it isn't hitting you hard.
Dyonsphere - I'm glad you are feeling better. The drains are the worst. I still have one in from my second axillary node surgery. It's finally starting to slow down. I kept getting huge clots in it that I couldn't strip out, and then it started leaking. Yuck. My doctors aren't at all worried, it's just such a pain, so I feel you. I'm also much smaller and keeping it that way. I find it so nice to not wear a bra, and I think I will actually need to size down most of my shirts. I used to wear a M or L, now I'm a S or M depending on cut.
Ajminn3 - I agree that the smaller breasts is really convenient with the bra. That's great that your hair is coming in quickly, mine feels slow. I started going out for walks and stuff a little bit without anything on my head. It's not full coverage hair yet, but it's enough of a shadow that I decided I just don't care. Are you covering or just going bare?
All is well for me, I'm feeling much better, excited to get the last drain out this week. The axillary node incision in my armpit is still pretty annoying, I feel like my armpit is glued together, so it's hard to move my arm much. I'm slowly feeling it out as I want the stitches totally healed, but don't want to lose range of motion. Also anxious for my meeting finally with my oncologist this week.
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ajminn3 thank you for asking. I’m doing good now. I stayed in the hospital for a week then was released. I finally have surgery scheduled for August 3rd so I’m just anxiously waiting on that and trying to get my stamina back up so I can get back to work after surgery. I’m pretty scared the covid test is going to hurt. I’ve had 3 so far and two of them hurt, I hear the drive up testing sites hurt the worst so I’m worried about that.
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Hray - glad to hear you're out of the hospital and, feeling better. hopefully your surgery will be easy enough to handle.
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Hhray- thank goodness you are feeling better. I had two drive up Covid tests. They didn’t hurt, but mine were the throat swab. Definitely a longer than comfortable swab, so you start to want to gag, but no pain.
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maybe they will do the throat swab! I think surgery will go well. I’m getting a lum
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Hray- glad to hear you're doing okay! I haven't had a covid test, but it seems like there's a lot of different kinds and varying levels of uncomfortableness.
Fab4mom- I'm not brave enough to go bare! I am not cute with short hair unfortunately haha. I wear my head scarves or a baseball cap. When I'm at home I do go bare to give my scalp some fresh air!
Scattered- glad to hear your covid symptoms aren't too bad, but I'm sure you're bummed to keep putting off surgery.
I have my 3rd HP infusion this Thursday. I also start my ovary suppression shots and estrogen blocking pills. Friday is my last day of radiation. I can’t wait. My armpit and chest are super red and sore. Ending July with a bang here
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This delay makes me wonder, what happens if I don't have the surgery? Is there any research on that from people who had a positive outcome from chemo and then decided to not have a mastectomy? 🤔
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I got my pathology report back. Clear margins but 5/27 lymph nodes were positive. I have radiation to look forward to but I'm relieved to get that report over with!
SE, I had positive chemo report but they can tell so much more with surgical pathology than clinical staging.
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This delay makes me wonder, what happens if I don't have the surgery? Is there any research on that from people who had a positive outcome from chemo and then decided to not have a mastectomy?
I wouldn't risk it, there's so much they can't see on MRI and CT. Nothing compares to a surgical pathology report.
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dysonsphere - glad you had clear margins, and sorry about the positive nodes. I’ll be doing radiation soon too.
ScatteredEnergy - based on scans, my surgeon thought I had a complete response. We went into surgery confident and ended up with a lot of small residual cancer. I’d be worried about not going in for surgery. I really hope your next Covid test is negative, what stress making you wait through everything.
Ajminn- I’m not cute bald either, I just am so sick 🤒 f all my head covers and it’s so hot. Mainly only doing it on neighborhood walks. Good luck on the hormone suppressing shot, I hope it doesn’t hurt.
I’m so tired of my armpit surgical drain. I feel like I can’t heal and start feeling normal until it’s out. I think I’m over 30 cc’s again today, which means it’s still needed. I am hoping output is down by Wednesday when I go in for my next infusion. I am really hoping I can pop by my surgeon and get this thing removed!
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Scattered- I agree with Dysonsphere and Morrigan, the surgical pathology gives so much more information. My clinical staging based on imaging and biopsieswas DCIS, stage 0. Had I not gone through with my surgery, they would not have found the invasive component and I’m positive that mine would have continued spreading. The only invasive component found was 3 mm on 1/3 sentinel nodes taken (my main tumor was all DCIS with obviously some extremely tiny invasive component they weren’t able to find via imaging or post surgical pathology due to the tumor size). That 3 mm is what put me down the path of chemo, rads, and hormone treatment due to being triple positive.
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Thank you laides. I guess that makes sense.
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Has anyone had issues with their sutures after surgery? Today I started bleeding from the left breast and then while I was cleaning that up I sprang a leak on the right! It really freaked me out but surgeon said to put gauze on them and see him tomorrow. I guess they are dissolving and I still have fluid in there so ewww. I wish just one thing in this long treatment plan would go smoothly and without pain ;-P
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dysonsphere, that happened with my tummy tuck. You can see on my scar the parts that opened up lol
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is anyone growing hair yet? Mine is growing so slow.
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