Second Tour in Afghanistan

Teeny

Second Tour in Afghanistan

Teeny

Well, I had DCIS in 2003 and enjoyed 9 cancer-free years.  But last Friday they told me I have IDC and DCIS in the same breast. Now I am still in the discovery phase--but am so PO'd, because I thought I'd done my time, and now I feel like they're sending me to Afghanistan again.  Any other double timers out there?

jo50

Yup. IDC (2A, 1/11 nodes, lumpectomy, chemo and rads, then Herceptin) in 2004. This year DCIS, same breast. I felt more panicked this time around, although an easier diagnosis - I think because altho I'm a realist and know we can never really say "cured" I wasn't expecting to have to deal with it again. Alarming to me that my body was continuing to try to grow bad stuff. Since I had rads last time lumpectomy wasn't an option so I had a UMX, no reconstruction. Surgery was much easier to handle than I expected, and recovery time was speedy. Fortunately for me I didn't need chemo again this time, although I suppose I would have stomped through it again if I had to. Remembering back to the first time, it does take over your life for a while, but luckily for most of us it is only a while, and focusing on the rest of our lives that will come after treatment is done helps put it into perspective. Once I got the action started I did calm down - doing something rather than hanging about waiting always feels better, as you probably remember from your first time. I am not very good at controlling my thoughts but I felt I had to consciously discipline myself not to go to the bad place with this (if it popped up again once, it can do it again - I'll never be done with bc etc.) - so did my research, reassured myself I was doing the right thing with the MX and then stuck head in sand, fingers in ears and did the "la, la, la I can't hear you" thing. I wish you good luck with it all - it sucks to have to do it again (sorry for language, but really it does!), but you'll get through it. Jo 

Marl5900

Second tour for me too.  I have barely finished treatment (TC with Herceptin until May 2011, Bilateral MX Nov 2011 and radiation until February 2011).  August 2, 2012 my surgeon did a biopsy on two "pimples" out of five on my recontructed breast.  There's cancer again.  We do not know the markers nor how spread out it is but I am told if I am lucky it is still local and they have to do another MX (with what is left?) followed by another round of radiation.  I really thought they could do that only once but apparently I was wrong.  If cancer show up in other organs, I get same treatment (MX and rads) plus chemo (again).  We're still waiting for MRI and petscan results but really I am not in the mood to start treatment again. All the options seem terrible. Is it that crazy to say no to more surgery after 2 years of pain? 

Teeny

My heart goes out to all of us! Why can't child molesters, rapists, terrorists and men who cheat on their wives be the ones to get cancer more than once?  Why am I scared every bit as much this time as last time?  Why haven't the waiting times for results decreased over the past nine years?  And why am I scared I'll die this time?

Ckb234

Well I guess we could say it's a good thing we're still here for the second tour, right? After 21 years I thought I was home free!! Working on reconstruction now and feeling ok but sad to say there's been very little change in treatment options over these 2 decades!! Hoping this is it for a while but my oncologist is pressing for genetic testing and has said maybe we need to think about my ovaries...