I'm new and have some doubts can someone help me pls?

YvetthAD

Hi everyone I been around for a while but I was just an viewer, but now finally I decided to make some questions to see if someone can help me a little bit... My mom 51 years old get diagnosed BC III 8 months ago she had 6 chemo, surgery and now results and doctor tell her that chemo didn't work, the doctor also send her to radio with reserved forecast (he don't know how many and don't tell her either if she will have more chemo or not) to be honest I would like to know if any of you went through the same? I'm so scared and sad that don't know what to expect.

Thanks everyone

SierraPineapple

If you feel like the oncologist is in over their head then I advise shopping around for a new one if you can. You should never feel like you don’t know what’s going on or that your MO doesn’t know either. I feel like sometimes during my appointments I understand everything the doctor says, but once I leave I forget! I know I can always call my MO and re-ask questions or ask new ones at any time. If your mom doesn’t feel this way or her MO doesn’t give her that option would be concerning to me.

As far as her treatments it sounds pretty standard. She did neoadjuvant chemo (just a fancy word for chemo before surgery vs after), then surgery. Radiation is also pretty standard after surgery. Do you know if they got clear/good margins with her surgery? If they didn’t then they should have done more chemo before radiation I think.

I had neoadjuvant chemo, which didn’t work well, then surgery, which came back with positive for microscopic cancer in my sentinel lymphnode, so my MO had me do more chemo, then 30 rounds of radiation.

This process is very scary, but it does help to have and know what your treatment plan is. Do you know what your moms’ hormone receptor status is? That determines a lot for what treatments there are and the type.

hapa

I had poor response to chemo. The tumor only shrank a little and my lymph nodes still had cancer. Despite having a mastectomy, I still had to have radiation to my chest wall, breast skin, and lymph nodes. It is normal. Her MO might recommend further treatment, either before or after radiation.

star2017

I had surgery first so I don’t know how well chemo worked. I did radiation after chemo. It is pretty standard.

Can you tell us more about your mothers cancer type?

CaliKelly

Many women, including me, have the chemo first to try to shrink the tumor. Sometimes they have what is called as complete pathological response, which means they can't find the tumor anymore. So that can change the rest of the treatment. My tumor shrunk a lot but itvwasnt gone, and the surgery found that 8 out of the 20 lymph nodes they removed , still had cancer. So then I had radiation, and another type of chemo, pills instead of infusion. Now I have no evidence of cancer(NED, means no evidence of disease) The radiation treatments were pretty easy for me, I went right to the gym right after each one. I'm doing really great now, feeling just fine, so don't worry too much for Mom, just be there if you can to love and help her. Lots of us are stage 3 and doing GREAT! 💖