If you could redo your treatment-anything different?

Member_of_the_Club

Two things I would change:

 1. I would have done TAC instead of dose-dense AC plus T.  From what I've read, dose-dense hasn't lived up to its promise and TAC is a bit more effective, though probably not by a tremendous amount.  I wanted to be as aggressive as possible and I fear I wasn't.

 2. I would have trusted my initial instinct and chosen a different oncologist.  I just got bad vibes from the guy but everyone raved about his skill so i stuck with him.  he was completely uncommunicative and his style led to much anxiety on my part.  After treatment I switched and my current onc is so warm and communicative and I really regret I didn't go through treatment with him.

 One thing I do NOT regret is that I had a lumpectomy instead of mastectomy.  I am glad that i still have my breast and was spared the more difficult surgery. 

sam408

Other than sometimes wishing I had slowed down a little in the beginning and not had my lumpectomy within a week of my biopsy, I don't think I would change my treatment plan. Even though I ended up with problems after rads that resulted in needing to have a mastectomy later, I still thinking choosing lump/rads was right for me in the beginning. I wanted to save my breast.

I have had an ongoing open wound issue with my recon breast for the last 3 months, but I'm still comfortable with the type of recon I chose and also that I only removed the affected breast. The path on it came back clean, so my prognosis with lump/rads would've been good if my tissue hadn't reacted to rads so badly (and that's something they just can't predict).

So I guess you can put me in the satisfied column.

janet11

I was lucky. I found this board right soon after I was diagnosed.  AND my manager had already researched breast surgeons and oncologists for his wife 5 years earlier and gave me the names of ones who were excellent.  I talked to a surgeon and oncologist who were names from my PCP.  but I also talked to the ones my boss recommended and ended up going with them. And it was great to get hte encouragement here that it was OK to "interview doctors".

Even though I have permanent side effects (primarily hair lost), I don't regret any decision on treatment.  We made the best decisions we could at the time.  Even if it comes back, well, then we'll look and see what new decisions we have to make.  But I feel the decisions we made for treatment were good ones. 

But the one MAJOR recommendation Id have for people reading this is:  do NOT get RUSHED into anything. In general, a few days or a few weeks is NOT going make a difference, and you need to feel in your mind that you ARE ok with what is happening.  Visit MORE than 1 doctor, even if you like the first one.  You are trusting your life to your surgeon, to your oncologist.  You need to feel that you can talk to them and that they care about you.

Notice I didn't put radiologist in that group? I had a lumpy and rads, but felt that the rads were routine, and I felt I was treated like a number.  But after 35 treatments, I've never gone back (or needed to.

rrs

Amen and ditto!  Thank you for posting this.

Where IS that crystal ball????  I want one

I would have taken my time and done more homework and found this website (was it around in 2001?).   I probably would have had a prophylactic bilateral mast prior to even getting BC and might not be visiting this site so much after all this time still trying to figure out if I need to do more to avoid BC in the future.

Barbara, your comment about rads because your BC was close to your chest wall made me think about how deep my tumor was and wondering if rads were a good idea after all.  I won't regret having lymphedema so much now that you pointed that out.  Thank you.