Question about mothers breast cancer...help!

ghf11

My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer several months ago. It was small, only 0.7 of a centimeter, so small and caught early, but it was in one of her lymph nodes. She had chemo, 8 rounds, and then surgery (double mastectomy by her own choosing so it would never return) during surgery the doc saw that there was still some cancer in that node, so she removed all surrounding nodes (I think what the doc said was that she couldn't see or test all those nodes during the surgery so as a precaution she got rid of them all)

Is it possible the cancer spread during chemo elsewhere in the body? Or wasn't affected at all by chemo? I spoke to another doctor on the team and she said that she wasn't symptomatic of cancer being in the bones or brain so it's nothing to worry about...but I'm still worried. They're testing the other nodes and we should know the results soon (by june 18 or 17). But I'm worried. What if they find cancer in those surrounding nodes that they took out? More chemo?

 

Moderators

Dear vhf11,

We are sorry to hear of your mom's cancer but glad that you reached our for support and information. We are not sure that our members can adequately answer your questions but they are important and certainly worth asking. Perhaps when your mom goes back for her follow up and receives the information on the rest of the nodes you can pose these questions again. You also may want to check out the topics in the forum for Caregivers as there may be members there who can provide you with support as other family members. Keep us posted. The Mods