My mom, what can I do to help?

caringhija

My mom, 62, was diagnosed just a week ago tomorrow with breast cancer. According to her pathology report this is what I understand her to have: IDC grade 2, ER+, PR+, her2-.

They seem to be moving fast because her biopsy was last Monday, and her appt with the surgeon was on Wed and her appt is next week. 

She's decided to do a mastectomy because they found 3 lumps. One is benign, one is the cancer, the other is abnormal. They said they don't know if it can turn into cancer or what so she decided to just take it out. She doesn't want to have to worry about it later. Which makes sense to me. 

So, what can I do to help her? I'm married and in my late 30's with 3 children. 2 are school age the other is barely a toddler. I live more than an hour away but I will be there to help as much as I can. 

Any idea on how much care she is going to need after the surgery? For how long? Should I plan on moving in with her?

The doctor said that she would be receiving chemo and radiation after she recovered from the surgery but that those details would be handled by the oncologist. Is there an average length of time for chemo? If it hasn't spread to her nodes is it possible she would not have to have the chemo and radiation?

I'm trying to be there for her now as much as I can since she's decided to take the next week off of work but I feel like there should be more I can do.

Thanks if you've read through. I'd appreciate some ideas or help or something....... 

cmharris59

Hi caringhija,

Such a wonderful loving and caring daughter you are! There are some questions that I cannot answer, but I will do my best. 

 Some of these best questions are best answered by the oncologists. Has your mom considered reconstruction? If she decides to have it done, then she needs to have a consult with a plastic surgeon as well BEFORE the mastectomy.  This can help to answer a lot of questions about her options and her surgery.  I had a skin sparing mastectomy with 2 breast surgeons (no general surgeons) and 2 plastic surgeons in attendance. So far I am pleased with the results that they were able to give me. I have not started my final steps in recon yet.  You can click on my name and read my bio.  My recovery was 5 days in hospital due to morphine complications - could have been only 3 or 4. I had 6-8 wks home withpreferably no driving and absolutley no lifting anything over 5 lbs.  with the affected arm for the same period - 6-8 wks. I could walk around and do a fair amount by myself. Grocery shopping was extremely difficult for me. Caring for my cats was also hard.  She will have pain and will be on pain killers for several weeks if nota few months.Early morning stretching with arms over head caused excruciating pain for me. just a tip.

As for chemo, I had 2 rounds that each lasted for 3 months. A third round of targeted cancer drug some call chemo was a year. For your mom her targeted drug will be different as her is hormone related mine was not per se.

I had a unilateral mastectomy with no node involvement and still had to have a lot of chemo and radiation. It depends on the type of cancer, the size of the tumors, the clean margins that the surgeons can get,  I hope that I have helped to answer some fo yourquestions. When I went through my chemo, my niece who is about your age, came over teh evening that I had chemo adn left 2 days later. She lives 4 hrs from me. That was usually enough time to be with me to get over the roughest time and give me a break adn someone to talk to me adn help me.

Sorry for typos adn  such,

C

cmharris59

Oh after the first few wks of initial followups were over after my surgery I went to stay with my elderly parents for a few wks. They were not a big help physically but they were very much help emotionally. I did not want to be alone. I was on short term disability by then though. I had already had one round of chemo to shrink my tumor before the surgery.

C

cmharris59

Oh my niece had a 4 yr old autistic child that came with her and we had lots of fun during my chemo in spite of me feeling like crud. He loved my wigs.

caringhija

Hi C-

Thank you so much for your response. That does help. However now I have another question.

My mom read in one of the books they gave her that reconstruction can be done up to months later so she doesn't think she needs to do anything else before the surgery. Does it matter if the surgeon knows? Can reconstruction be done later?

JCallahan84

Hi caringhija,

My mom was diagnosed with IBC, Stage IV, Triple Negative - in Feb 2009. After her first biopsy they also discovered the cancer had spread to both sentinel lymph nodes under her arms. From the day she was diagnosed her doctors wasted no time. I felt for the first three weeks after her diagnosis she spent so much time at the hospital. Her doctors came up with a plan and she was treated immediately.

 She was going to have chemotherapy roughly 5 months, 8 cycles every 21 days. After chemo she was going to have a mastectomy. In the end she chose to have a bilateral mastectomy due to the severity and the advance stage she was diagnosed with.

 Prior to her surgery she had PET scan which came back saying she had no metabolic activity and there was no defined tumor. Essentially no cancer cells lit up on the test.

She had the mastectomy and was home the next day. The biopsy on both breasts came back negative for cancer however there were some residual cancer cells that they did find in both sentinel lymph nodes. So - she is going to have chemo again for the next for months every other week.

So some advice I can offer:

Keep the lines of communication open between both of you. I live an hour a way from my Mom. So I called everyday just to see how she was doing (we talked everyday, several times anyway). My wife and I said if you ever need us don't hesitate to call because we'll come down. We talked about the disease to. We talked about the future. My mom wanted to be very open with us and our family about what was going on. She is very strong. She even worked up to the day before her surgery. She even traveled for work though out her treatment.

The one thing we did do is we stayed very positive and we still remain very positive.

When she came home after surgery she was herself - I know since it's only been three weeks she has had discomfort under her arms more than anything. In addition to that she also had gurgling in her chest due to the tubes being there; draining the fluid. With in a week or so she actually had the tube taken out and even drove herself to get a pedicure.

I can tell you she did not want to be waited on. She didn't want to be babied. She did not want us to change the way we treated her because she had cancer. That was something she said up front. We certainly requested her wishes. I think most of all she knew we were there for her. She cried a lot, she was scared and still is. But I think with strong family and friend behind her it made things a little easier.

I'm an avid cyclist. I gave her Lance Armstrong's book to read because it motivated me so much. Well Lance tackled cancer like he tackled the French Alps. I told my mother to do the same.  Our motto was always "Live Strong". I hope everything works out. Your mother and your family are in my prayers.  

Stacey123

Well you know more than me. I have no idea about any of this. I should explain that my mum has breast cancer and her and Dad won't go into any detail about it. Mum just keeps saying she's fine but I know that's not true. She was doing so well this last week after her op but today she can barely move and won't let Dad take her to hospital. I don't really know why i'm talling you this. I just wanted to talk to someone other than my friends, they don't really know what they're talking about.