Can we have a forum for "older" people with bc?

In case I don't log on, just wanted to wish you guys a Happy Mother's Day.

Carole - you are right. I am very close to each child and one-on-one have a great time with them. And when all five of them get together, spouses included,we all have such a good time, my face gets sore from laughing so much. It is just their insatiable need to criticize each other that drives me crazy. It's like they need to prove they are the "best" child. As far as I am concerned, it is kind of like the Bible verse that says "Take the plank out of your own eye before you worry about the splinter in someone else's." They all have their own issues to deal with, but I love each of them whole heartedly. If each of them would just concentrate on themselves and their own families, I would have the perfect family.

I am going out for lunch today at the Cheesecake Factory with an old friend. Both of our girls, who have been best friends since middle school have both moved to GA. They are each about 40 minutes from the Mall of GA, in opposite directions. Like me, Jo is here this week because of her grandson's birthday. So, we are meeting there. We looked at possibly going to the movies at the mall, but there is nothing playing there that meets our tastes, so we will eat, then walk around the mall for a while. Other than dinner on Michael's birthday, and trips to the grocery store or Walmart, it will be the only social contact I will have this trip. I head home next Wed.

Sending good thoughts to Di, Puffin, Sandra et all. Have a wonderful Mothers Day.

Anne

The Tao Te Ching says, When I let go of what I am, I become what
I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need.
Have you ever struggled to find work or love, only to find them
after you have given up? This is the paradox of letting go.
Let go, in order to achieve. Letting go is God's law.

Mary Manin Morrissey

Happy Mother's Day to all of you wonderful ladies! I probably won't get on tomorrow. We are driving up to the homefront....about 2 1/2 hours to decorate Mom's grave for both Mother's Day and Memorial Day. Then we are coming home through Rock Island and eating the Mother's Day Buffet at Jumer's. My son usually never comes home for Mother's Day so I've tried to find a different tradition for the day.

I got a great Mother's Day present in the mail today from Susan G. Komen. It was the official letter saying that my mammogram was normal! Who could ask for more????

Hugs to all of you as you celebrate the important role you play in your families!

And Happy Mother's Day all! I already got a great present! I CAN HEAR OUT OF MY LEFT EAR!!! I still have to wear my hearing aids, but my PC must have been right! She said that bad infection, Bronchitis & Asthma probably caused me to lose more hearing in that ear... but it must be BETTER! I'm still going to the ENT Monday... Then on the 18th for another hearing test and maybe new hearing aids... They are over 5 years old. I hope if I need new ones, they will serve me as well as these have...

Congratulations Rita! Great news!

Anne.... good luck with keeping the kids untangled! Sometimes you probably feel like they are little kids again! After my 2 Daughter's grew up, they became "best friends"... In fact the older one thinks her Sister is her own little kid.... I think.... Ha!

So our oldest one is coming out on the 14th with our 2 Grand-sons....! Trying to get the house and the yard ready! I KNOW we will be busy with them!

AND our kitchen sink plumbing WORKS!!!! Daughter's friend came by when I was having a frustrating bad day... about the pipes, and why they were leaking, and us trying to put them back together... leakless! I just cried when I saw him....

Now they are WORKING! Sometimes things just fall into place! Like miracles.... when you need them the most!

Morning Bonnets! Oh don't go payin' any attention to those brats.... I mean kids. I don't know what happens to some people when they grow up, but their heads just get screwed on back-wards.... They start thinking only about themselves...

You are not alone... So many Mom's are wishing the same thing today.... Hopefully these same "kids" won't know the heart-break their own Mom's feel.

I have an idea! YOU call THEM! Tell THEM Happy Mother's Day! Even if they aren't a Mother, they made YOU a Mother! Hah! Just act like you are happy, and proud they are in your life.... if even not as much as you would like!

Guess we showed THEM! Anyway, happy Mother's day gals!

Sunny.... good question! I was 72 when first diagnosed... and since my cancer was only stage 1, grade 2.... and I had a Lumpectomy with the Mammosite device... I decided I didn't WANT to have chemo... Yes, my age had a lot to do with my decisions... first on not having a mastectomy, nor chemo.... I didn't want to go through all of that, considering my diagnosis... My Onco test was 19.... (Low intermediate)

What does your team say? Mine thought if I didn't want chemo, then it was up to me.... I also had the same diagnosis as you....no nodes involved, AND I'm over 6 years out!

Just go on living without worrying about what MIGHT happen....and have a HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Love is the greatest force for good.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Chevyboy - Thanks for your positive reply - good to hear you're 6 years NED. I agree with your attitude of gratitude and like to think this BC incident just strengthened mine.

I got pretty much the same feedback from my MO as you did. I got a second opinion from the chief MO and he concurred. Both felt the risks wouldn't outweigh the benefits. An added point was that my BC was ILC (Invasive Lobular Carcinoma) which tends to be less responsive to chemo than other types of BC.

Jackie from Centralia - Thanks also for your lovely reply. I understand why you gave over your decisions to the docs - that's what they're paid to do - give us informed advice. Actually, even though my docs left decisions to me, both BS and MO gave me their opinions and I agreed with them, following their advice.

I'm (gratefully) having virtually no side effects from the Aromatase Inhibitor I'm taking for the next (at least) 5 years and I am so grateful not to be reminded every day of BC (which was happening when I went to 28 days of radiation). Time to look forward and be grateful that I live in an age when I have access to such modern medicine and wonderful healthcare professionals.

How about others on this thread: Did your age impact your treatment decision when facing BC treatment?

Absolutely not Sonny. I've never been one to mark time by my chronological age. I think general health was more relevant for me than years - and I was in the best health of my life at age 67. And then...

I had "only" DCIS, but stage 3 and extremely dense breasts & lots of scares over the years. I opted for BMX, mainly because I didn't want to deal with it ever again (ha ha) and it turned out there were several tumors in both breasts. But margins were good & sentinel nodes were negative. I was ER/PR negative so no other treatment recommended. I opted for expanders during the BMX and reconstruction with Anatomical 410s six months later because I wanted to just continue to pull on my clothes in the morning & run on. I do take the time to brush my teeth but resent even the time to run a comb through my hair and I knew prosthetics would not be a viable option for me Like Anne, I have no intention to date, but knew reconstruction would make my day to day life easier - and it has. Things were great I was almost back where I started (minus nipples) and making lots of travel plans.

Unfortunately the cancer came back at 2 years and it was IDC & HER2+. I had neoadjuvent chemo without a complete response, then ALND surgery, then more chemo w/different poisons, then rads, then herceptin for the remainder of a year. Unfortunately I ended up with truncal lymphadema and my feet are numb with neuropathy from the chemo, but mostly my life is back on track. I've taken two extended trips in 2016 & rented cars, navigated new cities, hiked trails, walked beaches & celebrated sunrises. I am never sorry I chose double mastectomy & reconstruction.

I was 67 when I was dx'ed. Age affected my reconstruction choice. I chose immediate recon with implants because I wanted to recover as soon as possible and get back to playing golf and being active. If I had been younger, I probably would have chosen DIEP, which was an option for me. The recovery is longer because of the incision for removing the tissue that is relocated. It never once occurred to me not to have reconstruction. I went into the hospital with small breasts and was discharged with breasts, and that made the whole bc trauma a little easier to tolerate.

Anneb1149 - Good that you landed on a decision you were comfortable with. About your pre-surgery chemo, yes, neo-adjuvant chemo has been reported by quite a few posters here - not only does it shrink the tumor making it easier to excise, but it gives the docs an idea of what course of chemo works (or doesn't). Good point about how difficult it is to make important treatment decisions when our brain is paralyzed with the "I've got cancer" scream.

Wren44 - Sorry they found the larger, more aggressive tumor but SO glad they did. You said it was not on the mammogram and that lead me to wonder.............what other imaging did you have before your lumpectomy? Did you have ultrasound and/or MRI? Whatever you decide about any future surgery (for symmetry) you know you'll have support here.

MinusTwo - (hilarious name by the way!) Good on you not to mark time by chronological age! I am proud of my years but try not to let that number affect me in my life. So sorry about the recurrence and subsequent complications. You've had more than your share of BC treatments, for sure. Sounds like it hasn't kept you down, though. Thanks for being such an inspiration.

Seedsally - I'm surprised that your first surgeon said no to your BMX choice - especially if he felt it would be needed later - that's crazy! You're very lucky to have a supportive hubby with you during your BC experience. I lost my DH 15 years ago and have thought about how great it would have been to have him around during my surgery/rads, etc.

It seems odd to have atypical cells in lymph node on opposite side - how were they discovered? Doc exam? MRI? Please let us know.

CarolH - thanks for your reply. Sounds pretty straightforward to me!

Thanks to all for replying to my question. I think my age wasn't a huge factor in my treatment however when I read about younger women deciding to throw the kitchen sink at their BC's because of young children, etc. I completely understand. Not having young children and being widowed might have played a role, even if subconsciously, in my decision to do a more conservative treatment regime.

I was halfway through 64 when diagnosed--after years of normal annual mammograms, the words “focal asymmetry not present in 2013 & 2014” gobsmacked me. Turned out to be grade 2 stage IA 1.3cm IDC, ER+/PR+/HER2- (more strongly PR+ than ER+, so that probably raised my oncotype score out of the very low range). My BS gave me the choice of lx + rads, umx or bmx w/or w/o recon; she showed me a decision tree video and computer program that led to my decision to do just lx + rads, especially because my husband & I had booked the cruise of a lifetime for the week before Christmas and I wanted to be done with rads (and time chemo, if needed, to not be during the cruise dates) before setting sail. The cruise was wonderful--and my husband having recovered from two emergency intestinal surgeries was the motivating factor in taking it. I was focused on completing active treatment in plenty of time to take that cruise.

But in retrospect, I think I should have opted for bilateral reductions along with the lx. BMX seemed like overkill to me since the mammo on my other breast was still dead-bang normal, and even UMX would have been messy with or w/o recon. Plastic surgery would have extended recovery time long enough that we probably wouldn’t have been able to take the cruise even with short radiation because I would have been too exhausted. Whether I chose implants or DIEP (I have loads of belly fat & skin to work with), symmetry would have been tough to achieve. My breasts are huge, size H/I or even J (note to preteen girls: be careful what you wish for). There is no way i could do a UMX w/o recon unless I had the other one reduced--they just don’t make prostheses and mastectomy bras or camis that big. Though due to a tumor-cavity seroma and rads I had enough swelling that both breasts are now about the same size, I’m not sure what will happen if & when all the swelling disappears. (I’ll probably use a “shell” in my bras on the surgical side). And the size and weight of my breast turned out to have pulled open my SNB incision and caused the seroma to burst--delaying the start of rads by another two weeks. I cut it REALLY close. So my surgical decision was based partly on age--we’ve been married nearly 45 years and we’d both learned that health crises can mean that any more time than that is not a given.

The margins were clear, the nodes (2 sentinel, 2 non) all negative. My Oncotype DX score was 16--still technically in the “low” range but too high for me to be absolutely comfortable. My MO had said before the test that she was 90% sure that she wouldn’t recommend chemo, even before I told her about my concerns about cardiotoxicity (given my age), neuropathy and possible hearing damage (I’m a musician), and impaired immunity (I’m allergic to three major groups of antibiotic). When the score came back (and her e-mail to me read “Good news--your Oncotype is low--16, and you won’t need chemo”), she told me it was my choice but if it were her mother she would recommend against chemo--compared to just AI therapy chemo would have conferred only a 1% advantage in terms of recurrence risk and added less than a year and a half to my life expectancy--and who knows what the quality of that extra lifespan would be? If I were 20 or even 10 years younger, I think we would have both weighed the options a bit differently.

The other age-related pieces of the puzzle were radiation and hormone therapy. I had assumed that I would be getting the full 33-treatment whole-breast protocol, giving me less than a week or two to recover in time for the cruise. But my RO surprised me by telling me of a study in which he’d just finished participating, finding that in women over 60 with stage IA Luminal A tumors (like mine), 16 stronger treatments to just the tumor bed and a small margin around it was equally effective in reducing recurrence. He offered me the choice, and I jumped at it. Good thing I did: the seroma burst two days later, yet even so I was finished with rads three weeks before setting sail--before Thanksgiving, in fact. Had I opted for the full protocol, I wouldn’t have been able to take the cruise at all. The downside was I’m not sure whether the stronger radiation, even abbreviated without the SNB site in the field of treatment, might have caused the cording and stage 1 lymphedema I now have. I know for sure that it caused the enlargement of my mammary seroma, fibrosis of the tissue around my lx scar and swelling of my breast (which before all this had been half a cup size smaller than my left). I notice that my treated breast shows marks from bra seams that remain longer than on my left one--even though my LE doctor and therapist both say that’s not breast lymphedema, I’m not so sure. (Thank goodness it’s not truncal).

As to letrozole, age is a two-edged sword. On the good side, I’d been 10 years postmenopausal, so the drop in estrogen wasn’t as abrupt as in a newly or peri-menopausal woman (much less a premenopausal one thrown into pharmacological menopause by ovarian suppression, SERM or AI therapy); the side effects are fewer and milder thus far (4 months in), but beginning to intensify somewhat: trigger thumb, muscle aches, more night sweats. stronger carb cravings coupled with lowered metabolism and morning and “startup” joint pain. But all of that (except possibly the weight and appetite stuff) are also symptoms of ordinary menopause--and my natural menopause was quite “kind” to me in that regard. I worry, though, that the milder SE’s I’m experiencing might mean that the drug isn’t lowering my estrogen as much as it could, and recurrence always looms (as it always does with Luminal A bc if you live long enough past average age without succumbing to the usual elderly-woman causes of death)....but it could also mean time & tide took care of most of the estrogen before I began taking the drug--just more gradually. I also wonder if I had entered menopause 5 years earlier (statistically average), I’d have had SEs at all....or even developed bc.

In contrast, my close friend (who was motivated by my own experience to get her first mammogram in 25 years) was recently diagnosed at 70 (15 years widowed, 20 years postmenopausal) with ER-/PR- DCIS--large, centrally located in a small dense breast, multifocal grade 3; her other breast was discovered to have “anomalous calcifications." She reasoned that she hadn’t worn a bra in 30 years, had no interest in dating, a lumpectomy would have been so wide as to be almost a mastectomy, and that she didn’t want to go through the whole diagnostic roller coaster in the other breast down the road, a BMX made sense. Her surgeon tried to talk her into BLX with oncoplasty, or at least reconstruction, but she was adamant that she wanted to be “one and done” as far as breast surgery of any kind. (She has also had two stents and an arterial separation--so her reluctance to go under the knife for appearance’s sake is understandable). Her path report came back with pure DCIS in the left breast and “stellate radiating scarring” (perhaps from a long-ago surgical biopsy for a benign mass) containing ADH in the other, with the pathologist considering that ADH to have been precancerous. Her sentinel nodes were all negative. And her margins were clear. In her case, she made the right decision: all that’s left for her now is to heal.

Hi everyone. I have to say that my age was a factor in almost every decision I made after my diagnosis. I was 62 and was a grandmother for the first time to twin boys. I also have a debilitating autoimmune disease which affected my decisions. I think If I was in really good health I might have made a few different ones. Anyway I wasn't as concerned about how I looked naked, only in clothes. I wasn't as concerned about recurrence since I felt I had less time to recur than younger women. I chose to do direct to implant reconstruction because it was easier even if I had to have smaller breasts. I think I would have considered DIEP if I was younger. I have refused chemo and anti hormone treatment for QOL issues. Lastly I have no desire to do my nipples which I might have done if I was younger. So yes I think my age definitely affected my decisions! Good luck to all....

I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate.It is, after all, to matter:to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all. -Leo Rosten