Positive nodes= what

cherneski

If we have positive nodes, does that mean we have micro-mets?  I never thought so but before. 

I am dealing with someone that "her cancer is worse than mine".  That positive nodes = mets.  I had the same amount and when we were talking about stats she was insistant that hers had spread and she is so much worse than me.  UMMM ok you can win this one.  Sorry race to the bad finish line I dont care to win.

mrsb

Hi I was diagnosed stage 2 in january 2003. I am considered  early stage metastic because i have 2 micromets(one in each node). some onocologist may not necessarily consider this as a positive node . I prefer not to consider myself as metastasic but rather that the nodes did their job. i am coming up to my 7th year anniversary  and hope to get good resultsShelagh

cherneski

Thanks mrsb,

I dont consider myself to have mets in anyway.  That is sooooooo great you are almost 7 years!

OK here is the deal, my DH's step mom is a survivor, I was always told stage 4.  So of course with my dx, I asked her a lot of questions.  I figured who better to ask than a family member?  I got a lot of crap that chemo knocked me on my butt as bad as it did.  Things like "I had kids to take care of, no time for cancer".  Ummm her kids were in their 20s and out of the house.  "Had to work, who else was gonna pay the bills"?  Ummmm my FIL, just like he always did (and she didnt work through tx, nor now).  She would always put me down about how little I did.  I was also told I got lymphedema because I didnt exercise (hence too fat). 

Anyway, while asking her where it spread to her, I was told to her nodes, I said me too.  I was told well they took out 12 of mine!  I told her they took out 13 of mine.  I was told well I had 7 positive!  Me too, and my nodes were actually bigger than my tumor, 1 was 2.7cm (I think) and they were clustering together.   I was told "mine spread".  I simply asked again "where".  I DONT KNOW ALL I KNOW IS IT SPREAD!  Ok, Ok you win.  Shoot.  I honestly think she is one of these freak ppl that NEED to be worse than others.  She can win. 

But I am wondering if technically we do have micro mets?

MAMAQ

cherneski... I may be wrong but I think micormets are a small amount in your nodes.  Kind of too small to give it a meaurement.  Some doctors would consider these node neg, some node positive. 

Anyways, about your mother in law.  Screw her!  If that sounds harsh, sorry.  You have been through alot and no one should make you feel bad.  You keep fighting, no matter whatever those nodes are called. 

You take care.

Jo

SpunkyGirl

Don't spend too much time with your MIL-she doesn't sound too pleasant to be around!  That reminds me of one time with my MIL (we subsequently developed a nice respectful relationship).  DH was outside mulching, and I had the boys (who were one and three) out in the grass playing.  She and her boyfriend drove by and yelled out the window, "You should be helping him!  Make those kids sit still and mind!"  I was P.O.ed, but now I laugh about it......

LRM216

Can you say "witch" with a "b" instead????  You don't need her negativity, for sure.  Unfortunately, as the saying goes.... we can pick our friends, but we can't pick our relatives.  So sorry, hon.  Just don't let her get to you.

Linda

cherneski

Thankfully she lives in SC, so I don't see her much.  But she might be coming up again soon.  I thought we would get closer with this but surprise I cant stand to be around her.  Funny we all learn so much about who your true friends are.  Dhs, mom (real mom not step) used to drive me insane!  I couldn't stand her at all!  Now we are better than ok and that is good.  For whatever reason she learned how and what to say all the right things with me through this.  As we know most ppl don't. 

This all came up again because I heard it said again the other day that positive nodes equaled micro-mets and I was just wondering.  I hate the thought of any mets so I stick with NO METS, micro or not.  But to be honest with you I would love to be able to tell her, nope just cause they are in the nodes doesn't mean mets.   Twisted I know, but you all know me enough.

Much Love Deb

konakat

Hi Cherneski.  Positive nodes does not equal mets. Mets is Stage IV when the BC has spread to a distant organ or bones.  She wants mets?  She's welcome to mine!  And twisted is good. I love twisted!

Elizabeth

xox

diana50

my nodes were "encased:" meaning that they were FULL of cancer.  i had a lot of them so i am stage III.  the good part of having nodes full of cancer is that they caught the cancer and it didn't move into lungs, liver, bones.  the nodes do their job when full of cancer.  so far, after 7 and half years...i still don't have mets because my NODES did their job, that is how i look at the whole thing,.

cherneski

I LOVE my nodes~lol yes they did their job well for me and I am thankful! 

Elizabeth~ I will let her know she can have yours~lol.  I am twisted yes, and I like how twisted I am.  Her on the other hand is twisted in a wack way.  As sick as it is I really dont think she is stage 4, I think she likes the attention.  She is one of those I am better than you, and boy didnt I hear it while going through chemo!  I should have kept on with my merry life and not let cancer effect me and my family.  I wish the chemo thought so.  She was also amazed at how many rads I got.  Wanted to know why the Dr. was giving me so many, as she didnt get that many at all.  Whatever.

konakat

It's so stupid.  I had a cancer groupie for a while.  Thank-goodness she didn't have cancer -- it was a benign colon polyp removed years ago but she jumped on the cancer survivor bandwagon when she heard I had BC.  We were cancer buddies!  Good grief -- find another hobby!  I don't think it's a club any of us want to belong to!  There's nothing you can do with people like that, just grit your teeth and try not to strangle them.

KerryMac

Oh my goodness, i have a friend who has done that!! She found out her Grandmother died of Ovarian Cancer, suddenly she was going to get it too, and die and leave her children. (she actually had that very discussion with me, I mean, really!) Went as far as going to her Dr for an Ovarian Ultrasopund, I almost think she hoped they would find something.

Then she got all jealous of this board, and tried to get herself into different forums herself. 

It is funny, I think some people just like the attention. 

konakat

Sorry for popping in again, but I just want to take the opportunity Kerry to say that you are beautiful!  And my how fast your hair has grown!  My hair's never been nicer since having chemo -- what a laugh -- another reason for the cancer groupies to be jealous!!

KerryMac

Oh, thank you Elizabeth! It is funny, as I look at photos of me and I just don't look like me! Always had straight hair, except for a few bad perms in the 80's!! LOL!

jenn3

I agree there are those that love attention and want to be aligned with you because you have cancer or have to one up you every step of the way.  And as for family - we're stuck with them, but we do learn who we can depend on and who we really don't want to be around.

Kerry - When I first started on these boards I remember seeing your picture and you had no hair or very little - now you have a full head of beautiful hair.  I do see that it's curly, which is what I think mine looks like it's doing and like you I had straight hair before BC. 

cherneski

Kerry, you give me hope that mine will be curly too!  I sure hope so, same as you straight except a couple bad perms.  Weren't the 80's great!

Elizabeth, Stop in anytime!  Keep coming I love your attitude.

One of my husbands friends girlfriends when found out about me, told me she will probably die of heart disease?  UMMM ok, I'll bite, why?  Cause she get colds all the time.  WTF? Are you serious?  She is a wack job beyond.  She also was constantly criticizing our friend who spend a few months drunk after burying his wife, she passed the day after her 36th b-day and they have 5 children (4 of them under 10).  She would tell anyone that would listen what a crappy father/person he is, and husband he was.  I told her to shove it that if I just buried my husband I might be likely to get drunk a few nights/month/ years too.  She doesnt really talk to me anymore since then, but loves to spread lovely rumors about my husband now.  Some people.

Diana63

Elizabeth, I just love you, cancer groupie, thats funny. I want a groupie and no my goofy dogs don't count

Nico1012

diana50 ~ " i still don't have mets because my NODES did their job"   LOVE IT. Because it's so true.

KerryMac ~ your curls are gorgeous! Does chemo curl last or does it grow out?

cherneski ~ it does take all kinds! Can't imagine WHY anyone would want to one-up a cancer dx.

Nico

KerryMac

I hope the curls stay - i am really enjoying them! I am hoping to get to shoulder length before I get a trim - so it is pretty bushy.

Something else I have found, is that everyone has to tell me now when they go for a Mammogram.....

Bugs

Oh, they stay (at least for me they have).  I grew my hair long to try to tame it down a bit and all my groupies still oooh and aww over my curls.  LOL

ccbaby

One of my co-workers had some type of nipple cancer 7 years ago and she told me more than once this past year how...'her cancer was so much worse than mine'...Well, she had a mastectomy with immediate tram flap surgery and radiation (once a week, which I thought didn't make any sense) , she doesn't know what stage she was or even how many lymph nodes were taken. ....I had mastectomy with immediate TE, then chemo, then radiation, then a hip flap surgery...  It is almost like she was very jealous of all of the attention I was getting with my cancer and treatments and thought she had to 'let me know' that hers was so much worse. Well, I didn't want the attention or the cancer, she can have it all as far as I am concerned! Some people are just attention starved. Seems like there is always someone out there that just doesn't get it.  Like you said...she can finish first to the bad finish line!

cookiegal

I think micro mets are smaller than 2mm....and yes there is some disagreement over whether that is a positive node. I was hopeful, because after my sx the surgeon said it was a very small spot of disease, so my stage might be 1b, but the spot was 4mm so I was a plain ol 2 with one positive node.

It is confusing, because a positive node is a metastisis, but not stage 4, so we do not have "mets" in that sense.

NancyD

Literally, metastesis means it has moved from the original site. Once it is anywhere other than breast tissue, it has metastesized. However, the medical community makes a big distinction between locallized metastesis and distant metastesis.

Lymph nodes in the axillary region (same side) are considered local metastesis. Since they can be removed with the breast tumor, they present less of a threat than a distant metastesis to another organ where removal would be difficult or fatal. That's why they are still staged as III rather than IV.

If you want to get real literal and nitpicky, I think you could say IDC is metastesis of DCIS.

As far as your step-MIL, she sounds like a friend of mine, who whenever my breast cancer comes up in a discussion among our friends, has to remind everyone that SHE had pneumonia just about the time I was diagnosed. No one can ask me a question about my treatment or surgery, or anything bc related that she doesn't mention her fricking pneumonia. And of course, her pneumonia was "life-threatening" (like my breast cancer wasn't, lol).

Anonymous

Deb~ Your MIL sounds like a "peach".   She wants to out do you with her sypmtoms because now she can't be the only one who gets attention because of cancer.  How sick is that.....?

Right after my mastectomy and SN biopsy, the BS told me in recovery that he got all the tumor and had clear margin and good news no cancer in nodes, but he was sending it out to pathology and they will culture it out.  Well turns out the following week the culture was positive for cancer cells and they wanted me to come back for an axillary node dissection.  They then removed a cluster of 17 more, and out of them 1 more node cultured positive for cancer cells , so I had total of 18 removed with 2 positive for cells.  Reading my path report it said no distant metastasis. But it did read metastasis to node .  I asked my onc about it and he said no mets. It's how they word it on the path report when there are positive cells in nodes.  So your question is making me wonder now does that mean that positive cells in 2 out 18 nodes mean micro mets.  So I'm still confused. And I hope my nodes did a good job keeping the cancer cells from traveling anywhere else.

Brenda_R

Positives nodes = localy advanced, or localy metastatic.  I was a little confused on that too after my Pet scan said "metastatic disease". 

KerryMac

My mothers best friends daughter was diagnosed the year before me. She was Stage 2-ish HER2+. Apparently my sister said my mother and this friend of hers were having an argument over whose BC was worse - mine cos it was in the nodes, or the friends daughters because she was HER2+. Absolutely insane. It boggles my mind what people are thinking sometimes.....

cookiegal

 I think....

 a postive node is over 2mm

micro mets are small spots of disease 2mm and under

smaller than that is an isolated tumor cell

most doctors count the later 2 as a negative node for staging, but may treat is as postive when planning ajuvent treatment

Billynda

So, I have a question.  If you have positive nodes, and your cancer has metastasized (sp?), where does it usually go from there?  Is it the same for everyone?

 I have a cancer groupie, too!  Or at least, I think I do.  She is supposed to be letting me know...  I really hope she doesn't - if she does I'm going to feel like a really big piece of dung for saying that!!!  

konakat

Mets isn't the same for everyone, but most seem to go to bones, lungs, brain, and/or liver.  Also spinal fluid, skin, eyes, distant nodes, pretty well where ever it d*mn well wants to!  You just never know until it happens.  For me it's still in my liver and had a brief stay on my spine but at least that's cleared up for now.

Nordy

cherneski - I had to laugh when your step monster-in-law said that you got lymphedema because you didn't exercise! Boy, that just shows how little she knows about lymphedema! Exercise can trigger lymphedema - it can also prevent it! It just depends on how much is too much and what your body can handle in moving fluid; whether or not you wore a preventative sleeve, etc. Lots of variables. I am not overweight - I am lymphedema certified and a PT Assistant and guess what... I got lymphedema!!! I had someone look at me like I was an idiot for "letting myself" get lymphedema. If I could have reached across the table and slapped her I probably would have. And do you know what triggered my lymphedema? Radiation started it, but a STEP class handed it the final blow. SO, it is readily apparant that your step m-i-l has not a clue as to what she is talking about, and HELLO, if she was really stage 4, I sure as h*ll would bet she would know where her mets were...