Chemo not working - rushed radical mastectomy - low health

laurmoro

Hi all,

My mom is the patient, and was found to have IBC back in March, this is her second time with breast cancer after undergoing a partial mastectomy on the opposite breast back in 1993; with her breast quadruple it's normal size, we knew it had spread to the lymph and the ribs, and when they did a sample biopsy, it tested positive for Papillary, but has acted only like IBC, which has led her Doctor to believe that she has two types of cancer in her body. She has a BRCA1 mutation as well.

Her oncologist from the beginning was at a loss, (small town) and treated this poorly. She was on the right mix, 3 treatments of FEC neoadjuvant chemo, and 3 treatments of Taxotere to shrink the mass so she would be eligible for surgery.

After her first Taxotere treatment, the chemo stopped working. It grew almost as large as it was in the beginning. They switched her back to the FEC, but it didn't shrink it anymore, just kept it at bay. Her oncologist said he didn't know what to do anymore, but wanted to keep attempting chemo mixes until it maybe made a difference. Chemo wasn't working, she's 53 years old and her health is so low because of this cancer she cannot get around without a walker, sleeps almost 18-19hrs a day, and she has a blood pressure range around 80/55. 

They're now rushing her into surgery Thursday to attempt a radical mastectomy as it's a last resort. If the surgery is successful, she will continue chemotherapy and then radiation.

Has anyone that has gone through IBC, had something similar happen to them, where the chemo just didn't respond? Also anyone who went into surgery for a mastectomy with a health level startilingly low? I'm very worried about that.

Thank you, and I hope all of you going through this on this forum beat it forever. All cancer is terrible, and this is the angriest beast of a cancer I've ever seen, or learned about.

bcfree2013

Has the oncologist tried Carboplatin/Gemzar? I've read that BRCA1 tumors react well to platin based chemo. Best wishes!

ibcmets

Very sorry about your Mom's diagnosis.  I've heard that chemo is important to start b/4 surgery. I was on TAC chemo, maybe as suggested another chemo will reduce the inflammation so she can have surgery.

Terri

laurmoro

Hi Bon,

Thank you for your quick reply and kind words, I'm wishing you the same. This is the weird part of the cancer. She was diagnosed near end of March, the tumor grew within two weeks and she was almost immediately incapacitated by it.

I think her oncologist seriously dropped the ball. They said after the one biopsy, it aggravated the tumor to the point that they couldn't go back in to test more. As far as I know, she's never even had a PET scan, he actually at one point was just taking pictures of the breast to measure the tumor sizes between treatments.. She became too weak to continue chemo, and when she said that, he washed his hands of her (after trying to give her a chemo that he told her two weeks earlier, wouldn't work with IBC), now the surgeon has told us, this is our only option. But I'm wondering if in two days based on your advice there's anyway I can convince her otherwise.

She's fairly hell bent on not doing anymore chemo until they attempt surgery, but I have the same concerns you do regarding attempting a radical mastectomy with her blood pressure and health so low.