chemo before surgery - anyone else

pamelahope

My name is Pam and I was just diagnosed yesterday. I will need chemo before surgery as the surgeon put it as I have quite a load of it in my breast. This is the statement that scares me. He mentioned chemo before surgery to shrink the tumor. I had years of normal mammograms!!!!! One in Feb and another in April and nothing showed up.

Did anyone else face something similar? Chemo before surgery. I think I will start in two weeks.

Next week is filled with appointments PET, MRI, oncologist and radiologist, breast surgeon the following Wednesday. I heard something about a port.
To be more specific, did anyone else have a lot in their breast, and not face a dire prognosis?? Scared.

Pam

Myleftboob

Hi Pam

I had alot of DCIS in my breast and 2 areas that looked like tumors via the digital imaging from my mammograms done in November 2012.  My surgery was in December and when the path report came back, nothing had spread beyond the breast so nothing in my nodes or near the chest wall even though it was throughout 3/4 of my breast (DCIS portion) There were 2 tumors of IDC along with 2 microscopic ones as well.

Although I had to do chemo after, I didn't have to do radiation because my margins were excellent.  I'm now doing Herceptin until the end of they and Tamoxifen for 5.

Alot of women though have chemo first then surgery so don't despair.  All of this sucks but beleive it or not, getting chemo out of the way first isn't all that bad.  I just finished chemo 4 weeks ago, but I found surgery very easy and recovered quickly.

Good luck to you and keep us posted.

riley702

I had chemo first. I had an aggressive tumor and they told me they'd be able to quickly assess how the tumor was responding to the chemo and could change the chemo if it wasn't working as well as they wanted. Sometimes, they're able to shrink it enough with chemo that you only need a lumpectomy instead of a mastectomy, so there are lots of reasons to do chemo first that DON'T mean a horrible prognosis.

If you find yourself overwhelmed with anxiety (which is a LOT of us!), don't be afraid to ask for something to help with anxiety and/or problems sleeping. It's very common.

mary625

I'm usually on the ILC forum where it's pretty typical to find out you've got a large tumor and need pre-surgery chemo (called neoadjuvant chemo), but I still wanted to respond.  I had neoadjuvant chemo, and I'm glad that I did because I got to feel for myself the progress that was being made.  We knew that the drugs were effective on the tumor.  I still had an MX.  I knew with the ILC growth pattern described as being like Swiss cheese that it wasn't going to be safe to have a lumpectomy, but perhaps you'll be able to.  I started with a tumor that was estimated at 7 to 10 cm, and it was 1.8 cm in pathology after MX.  I too was glad to have that aspect of treatment done with first. There is SO much help here in the chemo forum to help you get through it. 

Victoria3N

Hi Pam, your story is a repeat of my story. I will have chemo before surgery too. Last two weeks were full of appointments, MRI, x-rays, bloodwork, etc. I'm scheduled to get the port implanted June 5th, then my first chemo treatment is on the 6th of june. Just like you, all of my mammograms can back clean too. I just had one in January. Let me know how you are ding as you go through the process and I'll do the same.



Take care

ali68

Hi, good thing about having chemo first you get to see and feel it Shrinking. I finished chemo just over three weeks ago and had scan and no Cancer. I had small lump in breast and lots of Cancerous lymph nodes, waiting for my Lumpectomy on 19th June. I never wanted a port but had terrible problems with the veins so had one half way through chemo.

Good luck you will be ok, just be kind to yourself and take one day at a time.



Alison

lostinmo

Pamelahope, I am having chemo first and have 3 more to go.  The positive thing about it is being able to feel my tumor SHRINKING!  

Did you get a port?  Mine is my friend, it saves so much time and makes everything easier. It's easier to move around with a port than with an IV in my opinion.

Hope everything is going good with you.  

jpmomof3

Hi all

I am doing chemo before surgery too.  I was diganosed January 26th. I have about 5 cm of DCIS and a 2cm mass of invasive carcinoma.  they biopsied one node that i could feel in my armpit and it was positive for cancer too.  I want a lumpectomy and my doctors felt that neoadjuvant chemo would give me the best chance to be successful with a lumpectomy rather than a mastectomy.  I did 4 rounds of dose dense (every 2 weeks) adriamycin and cytoxan and am still doing 12 weekly taxol doses.  I cant feel anything in the breast or the armpit any more so I am very hopeful that the cancer is basically dead.  It was encouraging to feel it shrink and know that the chemo was working.  they will be able to tell that the chemo worked when I have my surgery.  That is an advantage of the neoadjuvant therapy over having the surgery first.  Best wishes.

ali68

Jpmomof3, Hey sounds like your has worked as well as mine, I'm having my Lumpectomy on the 19th June. When are you having yours?

profbee

Hey Pam!  Welcome aboard.  I'm so sorry about your recent diagnosis.  I had high grade IDC when I was diagnosed.  We did chemo first.  (I did a trial first with some experimental drugs.)  As someone said above, the wonderful benefit is that I KNEW that my chemo was working.  I could feel it shrinking.  (The other way you have the surgery, and do the chemo just in case there are cells left...so with chemo first, you know that the crap you're going through with chemo is worth it.)

The other added benefit is that they may be able to do a lumpectomy if they shrink it enough (instead of a mastectomy).  I had that option, but went for the mx anyway...but that's another story.

I understand the urge to just get someone to cut it out, but I'm so grateful that I went this way.

Sassa

My biopsy showed, as my surgeon said, "a lot of junk" in my breasts.  The junk was areas of DCIS and one of IDC.  I immediately had a mastectomy and then had chemo (4 AC) and one year of herceptin.

That was in November of 2006 for the initial diagnosis and mastectomy.  I have been NED since then and am thriving.

I did the mastectomy as I wanted to have a breast reduction due to over-sized breasts and had no interest in keeping a body part that was trying to kill me.  I also had the other beast (not a misspelling) removed after a follow up mammogram 6 months later came back with a BIRADS 5 classification (everything turned out to be benign). 

I went gloriously flat chested for two years until I decided to do reconstruction.  I now have nice "normal" foobs (B cup size) that will not decide to kill me in the future. I don't miss the old monsters at all and look much better chest wise than I have since I was a teenager. 

jpmomof3

Hi ali68 and all!

I am scheduled for surgery july 23.  I hope to find on the path report that every cancer cell is dead dead dead.  I am finishing up my chemo now, three more taxol doses.  I cant wait until all that is done.  I am growing just a little bit of hair on my head and more hair in the other places i dont really want hair.  But i am glad to have some hair grow back no matter where it is.  Gives me hope that all this will be behind me  soon enough and i will be back to "normal" before long.  I have rather small breasts to begin with but I didnt see why that should make it more necessary to have a mastectomy like my oncologist suggested.  So I am very hopeful the neoadjuvant chemo will make it so that i can have the lumpectomy. I know that the studies dont show a difference in long term outcome between chemo before vs chemo after but i just like the thought of killing the cancer beforehand and then having proof that it is dead when they do the surgery.

Ali68, good luck with your upcoming surgery! let us know how it goes. Are you working?  how long will you take off work if so?  I am planning about 3 weeks off work.  Hope it will be enough.

Buddhahead

My story is similar to yours Pam. Had "clean" mammos, MRI and biopsies for 4 yrs until one of the lumps in my rt. breast grew a bunch. Sought out a specialist who ordered all the tests you're having and another biopsy which showed positive in tumor and nodes. Had chemo4x of TAC that shrunk tumors and had bilateral mx 2 weeks ago. Still have disease in nodes so while chemo shrank tumor waaay down it didn't get it all in nodes. Now I'm looking at more chemo and rads Plus I have te's and will eventually have implants. It's all so weird and unexpected.



I am very sorry you are going through this. I'm sorry we all are. Here you can find compassionate people and some kinship and answers to questions. All the best to you as you start on this journey.

jpmomof3

LynnM, wow you have been through a lot. Glad the chemo helped shrink things and sorry it didn't get the nodes clean. But my husband is a pathologist and he tells me that they can't tell live cancer from dead cancer on a slide always. They fix the tissue with preservative and if the cells in the nodes were recently dead they can't tell the difference easily. They still have to treat it as a positive node of course but it's not always clear. Sorry you have to do more chemo, good luck with things and keep us posted.

Buddhahead

Thanks jpmomof3-- I appreciate your husband's info. It makes sense. Saw my OR today and looks like radiation first but only after the TE's have been filled. 

 Best of luck with your surgery. I'm 3 weeks out and I could probably work if I had to. I wouldn't be able to do much heavy lifting though. :-) I still have one drain in, so even though it's unlikely just be prepared for the possibility of having the drains  longer than you expect. Or, maybe you'll get them out in a week. 

ali68

Had lumpectomy on Tuesday, won't go into details but had a lot of pain. I'm home now and taking my meds and doing my arm movements. They took out all the nodes and cut around the nipple, ten days for path report.

1marmalade1

I was diagnosed in Nov/09. 5cm+ tumour, IDC.  Had 6 rounds chemo, uni-mastectomy, then radiation.  I am glad I had the chemo first...at least I was being hit with the hard stuff first, saw the shrinkage of the tumour, and my nodes were clear.  My onc wishes that more doctors would send their patients to the oncologists first, instead of to the surgeons, who all seem to want to operate, operate, operate!!!!  He is a firm believer in getting that chemo in asap and monitor the tumour.

Happy to say, the last 3 years have gone by super-fast - I'm feeling pretty good and moving on.  Pretty soon, you'll be through this too!