well they retested my CA 15-3 and it is now 135. It went from 40 to 135 in 6 weeks. Before this it had been steadily around like 18 for 3 years now. They called me yesterday to say it went up and they want to do scans but I was surprised at the 135 number. They have now ordered a bone scan and a CT scan. I am feeling sort of numb and sad. I have been having weird pain in my left side. It comes on suddenly and when I breathe in it expands and gets worse, but then it goes away.

I don't feel good about this. I don't know how likely it is that it would be a benign condition if it rose so sharply. I am relieved somewhat to be getting a scan so I can just find out what is going on. I would rather just know than wonder about the weird pains im having until it gets worse and worse.

I'm 33 and I am just going over the worst in my mind in terms of telling my family if something is going on.

Hi, thank you for replying. I hesitate to post about this because I know everything with the tumor markers can be misleading. But I am having the anxiety and had to put it out there somewhere. It was really unexpected for me that it would rise so sharply. I have an older oncologist who also treated my mother for breast cancer. I had an Oncotype score of 16, so it was not recommended that I do chemo. My treatment was just a unilateral mastectomy of the left breast and then Tamoxifen since then, but I've been getting ultrasounds of the right breast regularly and everything has been ok. The thing I worried about was that I had IDC-L and it was multi-focal with one branching bit off the main tumor so I didn't know if that might affect how likely it was to come back.

I'm sorry to hear that you've had a recurrence in your armpit. I'm hoping for the best for you with your scans coming up. The waiting is really the hard part. I am having a hard time distracting myself, and with everything else going on in the world things really seem to be thrown in to uncertainty. I am trying to come back to my hobbies and stop obsessing on this, but it is hard while I still don't know. Let me know how your tests go, and thank you for your well wishes. I have to just wait now for them to call me to schedule the tests and I hope it isn't going to be too far out but who knows right now.

How did you know I was stressing about it right this minute? Haha, thank you so much for reaching out and replying I really appreciate it.

I actually just had the scans this past Wednesday. (April Fool's Day and I do wish this was all a big joke)

I had a CT scan and bone scan. They posted the results on my chart the next day. I really have a terrible feeling about everything I read in the results. Everything just looks the worst. Multiple mentions of "suspicious for metastasis." And what's more is I don't even think it's a very manageable type of "bad" if it is what it looks like. "There are bilateral multiple pleural-based areas of nodularity without a pleural effusion. The findings are suspicious for pleural metastatic disease" So if it involves the lungs, not only is that a bad prognosis apparently but to have a lung problem right now I am terrified with the virus going around. It's a terrible time to go through treatment if I need to start that soon. I feel like if I get Covid-19 I'm just out of luck. And my fiance does not know if he can work from home, luckily I can. But him going out will put me at risk. My hope is just dwindling down to nothing. There were also mentions of uptake in one vertebrae and in my right hip bone. And "internal mammary lymph nodes" are suspicious. And the tumor markers were 135. I know that can be because of inflammation, but it could just be inflammation that is due to cancer and everything seems to point to that.

I really can't believe it. I feel like..was this there all along? Could it have gotten this way in 3 years? Could this be something else entirely? Another cancer or another condition? I definitely need to hear my oncologist's opinion. I assume after this they can figure out more about it? Like whether it is the same breast cancer or maybe something that became more aggressive? Or a different type of cancer? Or even a benign lung condition? I only smoked for like 1 year and not much. I hate that it looks like the lungs right now is what has the most problems. I was trying to prepare myself mentally for possible metastasis but I was hoping for at least the better outlook side of that. Maybe the pleural nodules are something else?

I really want to try to start to look to the positive possibilities but it's difficult for now.

I am now in the spot of waiting for my oncologist to call back to tell me more about what is going on and what the next steps are. They said he would either call yesterday or today but I think I might check in if too much time passes today. Things are probably just crazy right now and all out of whack in really any doctor's office. It's just a bad time all around for this. Thanks for checking in KBeee

Well the biopsy of my hip bone came back and it is a recurrence of my original breast cancer. It is still the exact same ER+PR+HER2- Grade 2. My oncologist seemed just as shocked as I was but explained that this spread must have been there to some degree all along, and it was being kept under control by the Tamoxifen, but some cells may have become resistant to Tamoxifen, allowing the spread. I had Oncotype score 13 so it was determined that chemo would not have affected the chances of recurrence that much. So I was just on the bad side of the probability. Trying to take it a day at a time..but i'm hanging on an emotional thread tipping one way and another. I have to now get a PET/CT and he wants to get a brain MRI because I have had worsening headaches..just to rule anything out there. And he went over my next steps for treatment. Have to get a shot next to shut my ovaries down. I don't know how to feel it's all just a lot.

Thank you for the hugs. It is crapalactic news! haha nice description. Stunned and sad, yes. I just don't even know. Thank you for your kindness.

hi! Yeah I wanted to reach out for support but I didn't want to unnecessarily scare anyone. I think my case is really uncommon. I was in a very small percent chance of recurrence. My doctor even said it was "bad luck"...great, lol. The majority of stage 1 people with no lymph node involvement/hormone+/low oncotype will not have a recurrence. And they would have found mine I think with or without the tumor markers test because I started having breathing symptoms right around the same time the tumor markers number went up. Otherwise the blood tests can just cause anxiety and I think there's studies where testing early stage people didn't lead to better outcomes. The good approach is I think is just take the hormone therapy or whatever else you have and do what's healthy for yourself every day.

AliceBastable - I'm thinking of you and hoping everything goes well for you. Things do feel so unpredictable.

edwards750 - You're right. I obsessed in these forums before all this happened because I was nervous about the chance of recurrence but I don't think it did me any good, but I felt like I couldn't help it. I had a lot of anxiety anyway before anything with cancer but this has brought it out in more ways and in different ways. I justified it that I was preparing for possibilities or just learning but now that things have happened I find myself more often wanting to avoid looking at this stuff and just do the normal stuff of my life. At the same time, it helps to learn just the facts about what I'm dealing with now.

wallycat - I am hoping I can get to the point where the disease is receding as soon as I can. I'm glad to hear your husband is responding well to the treatment I have started my first step of treatment already (Zoladex, and next thing will be Faslodex/Ibrance). I had asked about the chemo and he said it would have affected the probability only by a very small sliver. But can't help thinking it would have been a good idea still.

Thank you..*HUGS* so far not many side effects so that's good.