In the thread a week or so back about being at the bottom of the gene pool, I mentioned my sister was going in for a biopsy of a suspicious lump on her breast. As I mentioned, my mother’s had cancer twice (including breast cancer) my father died of cancer, and so on. Well, she got the results of the biopsy yesterday, as she was going into surgery for a hysterectomy. It’s cancer. They’re giving her a couple weeks to recover from the hysterectomy, then they’re planning a lumpectomy, chemo and radiation.
She has a 15 year old daughter, who she hasn’t told yet. She hasn’t told our mother, who had a stroke 2 years ago. She only trusted me with the info. Me and her husband, I presume.
I hope everything works out well for your sister, StGermain. Breast cancer can be defeated! Sending positive thoughts to your family, and “go away” thoughts to the evil cancer.
My sister in law is having her thyroid removed Thursday. Hopefully the surgery will remove everything “bad” - if not, she has to have some sort of radiation which involves being isolated for a few days to a few weeks. I told her it was not fair to hope for “hot spots” so she can get some time to herself.
I’m so sorry to hear that she has to deal with this news right when she’s recovering from a major operation. My mother is a long-term survivor of stage II breast cancer. The treatment options for breast cancer are constantly improving with all the research that’s going on, so there is a lot of reason to be hopeful. Best wishes to her and the rest of your family.
If you or she should need one, there’s a terrific breast cancer website with lots of factual information, research news, treatment options and descriptions. Probably the best part of the site are the discussion boards, listed under Support and Community. There are probably several thousand board members, with the core group being a few hundred posters who post consistently and thoughtfully.
The participants are from all over the world; the majority in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia.
This probably won’t mean much now, but there’s work being done all the time. By the time her chemo is through, our lab, for instance, will be offering a whole new type of test that will look at the expression of several hundred genes at once to predict recurrence months in advance of any currently available test. I mean, for what it’s worth, there’s been no better time in history to come down with it. Best of luck.
I’m sorry to read about this. Sending supporting and positive thoughts to you, your sister, and family. It can be beaten.
My mother just had a lumpectomy this morning. She came through with flying colors. It looks like, at this point, that they’ll only have to do localized radiation in her breast. They’ll insert a little sac, and then she goes to radiation twice a day for a week. That’s it.
If the pathologist report turns out differently than anticipated, the treatment may change, but for now, it all looks good.
Thanks, everyone. I haven’t been able to contact her today, but I only have her cell phone number, and she probably doesn’t have it on in the hospital.
Taters - {{{vibes}}} for your mom. I’ll add her to my prayers, it that’s not offensive.
I’m sorry too, St. Germain. And as others have pointed out, research is progressing rapidly, and new medicines and techniques are showing up every day.
A couple of treatment options your sister should research:
Neo-adjuvant treatment. It means chemo before surgery, to shrink the tumor. If the tumor is large enough to consider a mastectomy, neo-adjuvant should be considered.
Dose-dense chemo. This means getting chemo more often (weekly, or every two weeks, rather than every three weeks) at lower doses. It makes the side effects weaker and easier to deal with.
My sister met with the surgeon yesterday and she goes in next Friday for the surgery. The doctor has two relatively large spots he’s removing, with several others he wants to look at. the same day, before the surgery she goes in to nuclear medicine to have them do something radioactive which should show if there’s lymph node involvment. The surgeon is planning on a lumpectomy but told my sister to be prepared for anything, depending on what he finds when he gets in there. She’s most ticked that she has to be at the hospital at 6:30 when the surgery isn’t scheduled until 2:00.
She still hasn’t told our mother. I’ve told her that now that she knows what’s happening, it’s time to tell her, to stop infantilizing her. Mother worries more about things since her stroke two years ago, but she’s an adult who has dealt with her own breast cancer as well as uterine cancer. She can handle this. The last thing she needs is to find out third-hand and be doubly upset.
