Stage 1, is it turning into Stage 2 as we speak? :(

Fernandez17

Hello everyone,

The club, I'm officially in and freaked out beyond belief. I'm trying to be informed and also not obsess. The diagnosis was Stage 1 Breast cancer and the biology of it sounds scary - this is what the doctor said, "The behavior of the tumor/cancer is: Early Stage: Triple Negative, Estrogen Positive,Early stage based on size of tumor, Stage 1 - biology of cancer might be aggressive in terms of biology. This is a behavior of triple negative

Subtype breast cancer triple negative

Weekly estrogen

Receptor positive

Progesterone negative - Her or Her - 2 / new negative

Invasive ductile arose in mild ducks - I'm not sure this is what she said or wanted to know more of.

All that to say, I just feel mentally that Stage 1 is turning into Stage 2 as we speak and while I wait for results. I'm just scared and nervous. I am also in the process of having another hospital look at my scans and reports. Of course they don't have MRI or Genetic testing results. But I just feel like a ticking time bomb. It's crazy. With that said, any support would be so appreciated in regards to my fears.

ctmbsikia

Sorry you had to join. It sounds like you have triple negative as there was not enough estrogen in their sample to test positive, so that's a little confusing. It never hurts to have a 2nd set of eyes to look over things. Try not to get stuck on staging too much. It could change, but with treatment and surgery, until that pathology is done, then you'll know better. Hope you hang in there, the beginning is a whirlwind.

Melbo

sorry you find yourself here. It’s terrifying and overwhelming when you first get started, but the mental anguish does get better as you learn more and wrap your head around things. Triple negative is not a great diagnosis, but it’s still treatable and there is still a good chance that you will get through treatment and that will be the end of it.

Catching it early at stage 1 is also a great sign, and while triple negative cancers are usually considered aggressive, they won’t usually grow fast enough to go from stage 1 to stage 2 within a few days (or even a couple of weeks.)

Deep breaths. Educate yourself, but try to go to reliable sites like this one. You can also use the NCCN guidelines for breast cancer to learn more about how staging works.

https://www.nccn.org/patients/guidelines/content/PDF/breast-invasive-patient.pdf

moth

Techincially staging isn't final until surgery (though its trickier if you do chemo before surgery) but I agree with ctmbsikia to not get hung up on it. Staging at this point guides aggressiveness of the treatment. If you really are low ER and they want to treat as TN, then you can expect a recommendation for strong chemo & possible radiation treatment.

Cancer - even aggressive- doesn't grow substantially in days or weeks so you have time to gather info and 2nd opinions

Hang in there- this time between diagnosis and starting treatment is really awful but it gets better once you have a plan. Hugs