Hello ladies!

Shachar

I also have (had) stage 3 IDC.  I hate to say HAVE when they removed it all but, you know.    I prefer to say stage 0, cancer free, doing great.   Anyway, the oncs can't seem to decide where they would like to place me on the stage 3 grid.  I had 11/16 nodes but all were microscopic except two (1.0 and 1.5 cm).  The nodes on either ends were negative so it was the group in the middle.  None of the nodes were clumped together and sticking to themselves or other structures, and no tumor was growing out of any of the nodes.  My lump had clear margins all around with no chest wall or skin involvement so....They said typically I would be stage 3b but I don't meet the requirements of that, and yet I don't meet the requirements of 3a if they go with number of lymph nodes either.  I told them it doesn't matter to me because now I am stage 0 and treatment will not change so who cares?  Haha.  Just wanted to say hello and join the club.

I will be having my ovaries taken out soon (oophorectomy) and I am nearly four weeks out from bmx with TE in place.  After discussions with my onc and hovering over statistics, he told me that for me being hormone positive then removing my ovaries is just as effective (if not more so) than chemo would be.  I have cysts on my ovaries anyway (4 cm on one that I suspect is excreting extra estrogen) so it sounds like a win/win. Mentally gearing up for hot flashes now.  Wee!  And then on to Arimidex or Femara...maybe.   I may have labs drawn to check my actual hormone levels of estrogen first (or the lack thereof).   I'm a fairly small person with very little fat content so I'm not sure how much estrogen will be circulating after the take my ovaries out anyway.    I don't relish the idea of two more surgeries so I may try to get them to do the oophorectomy when they do my exchange.  Wouldn't that be nice?  It's great to be feeling normal again, be back to work, and be able to do just about everything I was doing before.