80 years old......????

I have a friend who was dx when her son was 3 months old. She had a mast and "cobalt treatment" (early type of rads I think). Her son is 32 now and she was the proudest mama when I saw her recently at his engagement party.

She also had 2 more children after that and she breastfed them on the remaining side.

Leah

some one I used to work with, her mother was Dx in 1956 and had a radical Mx...we've lost touch but I know her mother made it to atleast 51 or 52 years past Dx....she was herself a survivor of over 20 years.....I haven't seen her for over 1  1/2 years.. at the Komen RFTC, they give out ribbons to put on your hat to denote how many years, and the first year we went, my hubby and I saw a few elderly women who were 20 and 30 year survivors....gave us such hope....so may we all be shrivelled up old ladies walking everyday!!!

My neighbor had a mastectomy over 30 years ago.  She was one of the first on tamoxifen.  The real stuff made from the bark of yew trees.  She was on it six months and has not had a recurrence.  She is close to 80 now.

Mamita, there's a BIG difference between the 30-year survivors alive today and us. They really had what would seem like crude treatment. Even the mastectomies tended to be severe, often taking the muscle as well as the breast tissue. Radiation wasn't as targeted, so there was a lot of scatter to other internal organs. I believe that that caused a lot of collateral damage that eventually caused their deaths...not breast cancer. (I believe that happened to my mother.)

It's hard to compare their stats with those of us today receiving much more targeted care. I know there will be a much larger percentage of 30 year survivors amongst the women we see here on this board, and across the world, who are receiving or have received treatment since then.

I met a women who was 19 years out from stage 3. She did have a reoccurence and is now stage 4 but even with stage 4 she has been alive 9 years. So 10 with stage 3 and 9 with stage 4. 

Anyway- if we even go 10 years the landscape of this disease will be different. Each year more and more treatments come out. But if you go to the inspiring stories section there are a lot of women who are many years out.  I will take every year I am blessed with.

Actually there is  women who just recently on here-she emailed me-she was prego when diagnosed an dhad 22 out of 23 nodes. It has been 21 years for her.

Thanks to all of you for your inspiring stories.  I plan to be around for a long time.  I am now almost two years out, but I am aiming for at least 20.  I just have to keep getting on the "right" lines.  LOL

I do know one thing for sure now, since diagnosis, and that is that yes I am going to die.  It was an abstract thought until dx and then it became very real.   And yes, every little pain I notice (and now I do notice everything) makes me take pause,but I get over it.  I have to, because today, just for today, I am living, not dying.

Caren

My aunt was diagnosed with BC in the early 1960's and had a radical masectomy, the only treatment offered her at the time. She just died several years ago at the age of 87 after a full and happy life. I am thinking that back then, nobody was stage 0-1 when their cancers were found, because the only way they would have been detected was by a large lump or some other obvious problem. 

My mother was 58 years of age at the time of diagnosis - invasive breast cancer in both breasts.  She died at the age of 80 of an unrelated illness.

My mother was dx in 1962 and will be 97 in April.  She had radical bi lat mx, nothing else. no rads or chemo.  They stopped counting at 14 lumps and she says they asked if they could take pictures - not sure if that was before or during the surgery.   I was 16 at the time and remember her showing me the scars - like a letter Y on her chest, stomach.   And I remember the scars went over her armpits and onto her under arms.   There was no staging, grade or anything except "cancer" at that time.   

My Mom has survived 21 years. She was waiting for her surgery when a lady asked her, "What stage are you?" My mom didn't even know about stage so she asked her doctor.  Her doctor said "when you sit in the waiting room don't talk to anyone about your bc." So my mom new nothing.

Me and my mom have the same gene mutation and here is what I have available to me in treatment that she never did or knew about. She actually didn't know her er status and looking at her path report I couldn't find it either.

-oomph

-tamoxfin metab test

-AILS

-Dose Dense Chemo

-Taxol

-Zometa

-Aspirin

-power of exercise

-Targeted Radiation

My mom had her first BC 30 years ago.  All they did was remove a lump and had it biopsied. Positive for BC but no other tx.  I find it amazing, now that we know she is BRCA 2+ that she had no more BC until this last May. That was stage 1 and she had a lumpectomy and rads.  Interestingly, she had a hysterectomy not long after the first dx due to something (fibroids?? I don't remember).  Did that reduce her risk??  The sad part is that she now feels very guilty that she has been able to survive cancer but lost her daughter to it.  I do what I can to help alleviate the guilt.  The hardest thing I have ever done was to tell her that her remaining daughter was dx'ed with stage 3 BC.  But her immediate response was, OK - what do we need to do to get you through treatment?  Having her help me through this has been wonderful.  And I think it's been good for her to know that she is helping me.

BTW - she turned 81 last May.

I am going to take my (yet to be conceived) grandchildren to Disney World; and be the cool gramma who goes on all the rides, to the waterparks etc. with them . Can't wait! Ruth