Mother was diagnosed...

Polawess

Hey there. I'm posting for my mother, who is in her early fifties.

Last friday, she went to the hospital and had a biopsy because she had a lump on her breast- as far as I know, she doesn't have regular mammograms or anything of the sort, which worries me... It could be worse than it is. She had been visiting the doctor regularly concerning the lump before the biopsy.

 Two days ago, after school, mother told me it wasn't good. She'd been diagnosed with something called Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. From what I've read, Ductal Carcinoma is the most common type of BC. I don't know about IDC, though. Apparently, it was grade 1.

I'm very worried and can't stop thinking about it. Mother and I are really shocked- particularly because my mom is sort of a health nut, doesn't smoke, and tells me that BC doesn't run in the family, though I'm aware it can happen to anyone. I'm really scared for mother and want the best for her, so I've been looking for alternative solutions to chemotherapy and radiation. I've read about the two, and I've seen extremely pessimistic opinions as well as not-so-bad opinions. I guess it really just depends on the patient's body. I'm also pretty fearful that it spread...

So far, I've only found information on supplements that can only be backed up by mild resarch and some testing (think melanin). I'd really want more information on these supplements because mother and I are fond of alternative medicine, and I really want her to have the most comfortable treatment. If anyone here is experienced in terms of alternative medicine, my mother and I would find it really helpful. I've also found this one supplement called zeolite- it seemed pretty good at first, but after more delving I found some opinions that had other ideas about it.

One good thing is that I have a classmate who has a lot of health equipment- her parents are health nuts. Stuff like the lifelight (something that emits UV rays or something along the lines of those, apparently it's good for a lot of things), a detoxifier (the one where you stick your feet into it and your toxins are discharged into water) , and the biodisk. I think they're also a supplier of himalayan crystal salt.

Mother is scheduled for a full masectomy next week, and, thank god, her sister is flying in tomorrow. I'm happy that someone will be there for her as moral support, because I find it hard to comfort my mother... It's pretty awkward for me, I guess.

Here's to hoping that the masectomy will not be problematic. I really hope that the cancer has not spread to anywhere.

idaho

Your mother does have the most common breast cancer.....IDC or invasive ductal carcinoma.  grade 1 is good - that means it is slow growing.  I wonder if you meant stage 1 though- that means the tumor is small.... and probably hasn't spread to lymph nodes.  THey usually can't tell you a grade until after surgery..   Anyway- it is so very frustrating to try and find alternative meds because none of them have been tested the way they test man made drugs..... there is a thread on here you need to read- called nature girls--- they have done their own studies and found as much info they could on different alternatives.     Go on the top of this page and look under Forum Index and scroll down until you see "alternative - holistic- care"  lots of info there too.   Peace to you,   Tami

jenbal

Dear Powaless -- It's great that you are so close to your mom and being so proactive on her behalf, learning all you can about her condition and being such a support. You are not in any way "powa - less" if I read your "signature" right. You have all the power of your brain (to think and research) and your mouth (to ask questions and give reassurance) and your love!

I'm going to take a position that others might argue with, but I think you will find plenty of support fo it: There is NO PROVEN EFFECTIVE ALTERNATIVE TREATMENT for cancer. There are many very effective and helpful COMPLEMENTARY treatments, but nothing that will work as well INSTEAD OF the appropriate combination of chemotherapy, radiation, and hormonal/biologic treatments. Complementary treatments are those that are taken along with the traditional course, such as massage, acupuncture, vitamins and supplements, exercise, meditation, but none of these is effective as a cure or control of cancer alone, and it would be very dangerous to reject traditional treatments. The things you mention in your post -- the light, the biodisk, the foot soak -- may be harmless or even mildly helpful for some ailments, but you don't want to mess around with cancer!

There are many choices of chemo these days and lots of effective supportive medications. It's not a walk in the park, but many many people find it manageable. Remember that you are more likely to hear from folks having a bad time on these message boards than those who are finding it relatively easy going. Even when it's awful, the vast majority of the time, the discomfort is temporary and a price we're willing to pay for a long life. Comfortable is good, but effective is better!

You are in the early days just yet and until you know more about your mom's cancer -- stage, grade, type, size of tumor, extent if any of spread, etc. -- you won't have a good sense of the treatment plan. All that will become clear after the surgery and the pathology report. Then your mom should consult with a medical oncologist to determine the very best traditional treatment plan. Most oncologists now offer or work with others offering "integrative therapy" -- the complementary methods I mentioned above -- and she can take full advantage of that as well. However, it will be VERY IMPORTANT for her to work with someone who is knowledgeable about her type of cancer and willing to work with her oncologist. This is tricky territory -- for instance, you might think that taking lots of high antioxidant vitamins would be good, but they can actually reduce the effectiveness of chemotherapy. The treatment plan must be well coordinated.

Also, my dear, remember that you are the daughter. Your job is to be supportive and helpful as you can, but your mom's treatment and her health are not your responsibility. Do you have close friends and a good family support network? Be sure you take care of YOU too. Good luck to you both -- let us know how it's going!

bluedasher

Polawess, I agree with most of what Jenbal said (and perhaps she is dyslexic like me to have swapped the L and the W in your user name).

Invasive (or sometimes you will see infiltrating which means the same thing) just means that the cancer has gotten outside the ducts. If it hasn't gone much past that, that's not as scary as it sounds.

IDC doesn't mean that your mom will necessarily need chemo or radiation. It will depend on her stage and the characteristics of her tumor. (I think that Idaho meant to say that they can't tell stage until after surgery. Grade they can determine from the biopsy.) Grade is one of those characteristics. It is a measure of how different the cancer cells look from normal cells when they look at them under a microscope. It runs from 1 to 3 with grade 3 being most aggressive and grade 1 being least aggressive so being grade 1 is a good thing.

When they did the biopsy, they probably sent a sample of the tumor to be tested for receptors. It usually takes a week or so to get the results from those tests. There are two types of receptors that react to hormones - estrogen and progesterone. (That's the ER and PR you see in people's signatures.) Being positive means that hormones can encourage the growth of the cancer. Hormone positive cancers are also usually less aggressive and can be treated with hormone therapy either instead of or in addition to chemotherapy depending on how advanced the cancer is. The other type of receptor they test for is HER2. Being HER2+ use to be very bad because HER2+ cancers are usually very aggressive (even if they are hormone positive) but now there is a drug, Herceptin, that targets that receptor so women with HER2+ cancers now have a very good prognosis. HER2+ cancers are usually also grade 2 or 3.

There is also a test called Oncotype that can be useful when there is uncertainty about whether chemo is needed - especially with hormone positive, HER2+ negative cancers.

Stage measures how advanced the cancer has gotten - the lower the number the better. They may have estimated the stage from the imaging and biospy, but they won't know for sure until they take the tissue out and examine it and also check to see if the cancer is in the axillary (underarm) lymph nodes. When they do the mastectomy, they will probably do a sentinel node biopsy (SNB) to check the lymph node(s) that the tumor area is most directly connected to for cancer. For example, based on the imaging, it looked like my tumor might be as large as 3 cm which would have made me Stage IIa if my lymph nodes were clear and Stage IIb if the SNB found cancer. But when they did my lumpectomy, they found that part of the lump was a non-cancerous cyst, part was ductal carcinoma (still in the duct) and the IDC part was only 0.9 cm which makes me stage Ib. BTW, stage is usually written in Roman numerals and may have a letter after the numerals to more finely indicate how far along the cancer is. Lower numbers and letters are better.

Probably your mom is stage I or II because when it looks like it is stage III (the tumor is very large or the lymph nodes are enlarged) they usually recommend chemo to shrink the tumor before surgery.

Chemo depends on the stage and the tumor characteristics.

If the tumor is HER2+, chemo and Herceptin are probably a good choice even if the cancer is small because HER2+ cancers have a high rate of recurrence without it.

If it is HER2-, hormone positive and small, there is a low risk of recurrence without chemo. They may do an Oncotype test to see how agressive it is and use the result to help decide whether chemo is needed. They may also want to do hormone therapy. 

If it is HER2- and hormone negative (triple negative), the risk of recurrence is between that of HER2+ and hormone postive HER2- and they are more likely to suggest chemo but it still will depend on size. I think they may have extended the Oncotype test to this group - originally it was for hormone positive.

Radiation is normally recommended with a lumpectomy. With a mastectomy, it isn't thougth to provide any benefit unless the tumor was close to the chest wall or the lymph nodes were involved. If your mom has a mastectomy, doesn't have cancer close to the chest wall or in the lymph nodes, it probably won't even be suggested. If she does need it, radiation usually isn't that bad - but right now is a bit early to be worrying about it since it may not apply to her.

BTW, I don't consider things like the foot detoxifier, power light or biodisk to qualify as alternative medicine. They are quackery - good only for removing money from bank accounts. There are complementary or alternative medicine things that may help.

Polawess

Thanks everyone for the help and support! My mother and I really appreciate it...

idaho-

Thanks for the advice, I'll look into the topic. Hoping everything will go well!

jenbal-

Haha, actually, "Polawess" is a combination of my mother's offsprings' names: myself, my brother, and sister. I'm actually one of her sons, and I'm the only one living with mother right now. Sister is living abroad, and my brother lives in another house, though we do see him regularly. 

Thanks for telling me that- we weren't aware that there was no replacement  for chemo and rad.

She went to a pathologist for a consultment on complementary treatment, so now I'm not so worried.

bluedasher-

Gee, thanks for all the info! It's really helpful to me and my mother, now we're not in the dark so much. The only thing I'm worried about is the FACT that it is stage 1. The tumor was big enough that she could feel it already, and, since stage 1 tumors grow pretty slowly, I'm worried that it's been around for a while and could have spread. I'm hoping for the best, though!

Mother and I are also rooting for all of you! Hopefully, everyone will recover quickly.

dlb823

Polawess ~  There are some very good holistic practitioners out there, but your Mother needs to be very careful if she goes that route to any degree to find someone who is thoroughly knowledgeable about breast cancer.  I also looked at holistic approaches when I was dx'd, and I still cringe at the compounding pharmacist who assured me I didn't need surgery or chemo -- just a huge quantity of the high ph water he sells.  What I finally did was find an NCI-designated cancer center (UCLA) that has a whole department of complementary medicine.  And I've felt very comfortable having traditional treatment there because I know they believe in and also use holistic practices for an integrative approach. 

As far as Stage 1 tumors growing slowly, I think you've possibly mixed up some facts or terms.  Many breast cancers grow very slowly, but that has nothing to do with Staging.  Stage 1 simply indicates the size of a lesion, and the fact that it hasn't moved anywhere else yet.  Grade, on the other hand, indicates aggressiveness, which has to do with speed of growth.  Grade 1 means the bc has barely changed from normal cells, so is not aggressive.   But it's entirely possible to have a Stage 1 aggressive tumor if you happen to catch it very early.  

Do you know if your Mother was offered a choice of mastectomy or lumpectomy?  With a Grade 1 bc, depending on the size of the lesion and the size of her breast, I'm wondering if lumpectomy was considered?   Grade 1 is unlikely to have moved out of her breast, so chemo probably would not be recommended with either surgery option.  Is she opting for a mastectomy to avoid radiation therapy?    Deanna 

bluedasher

Polawess, I know it is hard, but try not to worry quite so much. A tumor doesn't have to be very big in order to feel the lump especially if it has formed near the surface. I could feel mine quite distinctly. Also, perhaps not all of the lump that she feels is IDC. Often some of it is DCIS - cancer that hasn't broken out of the duct and that doesn't tend to spread until it has broken out of the duct. Sometimes, there is even a non-cancerous part of the lump as there was in my case.

Grade 1 means that the cells are growing in a more orderly fashion similar to regular cells rather than in a very disorganized fashion. That means that they are less likely to have broken off and gone wandering even if it has taken longer to get large. The tests for receptors and possibly oncotype will help refine that knowledge so your mom and her oncologist can decide whether chemo is appropriate for her. If she does need chemo, it isn't that bad and it can be very effective. Because chemo and hormone therapy are systemic treatments, they act against cancer that may have spread outside the breast. 

Dr Susan Love's Breast Book is a very good resource that may help your mom understand what is going on and make treatment decisions.

jenbal

Dear Polawess -- Not sure if I'm more embarassed by getting your name wrong or assuming you were a daughter rather than a son! Apologies on both counts! Just chalk it up to chemo brain!  Keep us posted on your mom and take care!