Newbie

Wecome AgentMo-Sorry that you had to join our club. You will find so many wonderful ladies here. This site has been a god send to me. You will find many ladies (like you)here who are doing well many years after treatment.

Welcome AgentMo! I know this isn't the place you want to be, but you will find a lot of support and help from the women on these boards. 

You know, there is no difference in prognosis really between 3 and 4 positive lymph nodes, it's just a 'cut-off' point for statistical purposes...It sounds like you are getting a good treatment. Good idea to check out the '5 years out' thread. After 2 years of struggling with this, I have finally arrived at the conclusion that my prognosis isn't too bad...Treatment for breast cancer has really advanced and chances are good that you will be fine. Talk to your Oncologist and see if he/she can reassure you.

Lastly, you are very young to develop breast cancer. You can take a gene test to see if you carry a gene mutation called BRCA1 or BRCA2 - another thing to discuss with your Doc.

Take care, 

-H.

Agentmo- Im so sorry you had to be part of this group but like we say welcome~ you have come to a great place for support, i know you are scared and worried, most of the statistics are not correct and not updated also there are so much better meds out there now, the ladies here have who have been high risk have been here for a long time and doing good, im keeping you in my thoughts and prayers ((((((((hugs)))))))

Debbie

Agentmo, It looks like we had simular diagnosis and I have also heard the 50% prognosis, however like many have said, the statistics are outdated since we are getting advanced treatments. I am three years out now and I am just now starting to get beyond thinking about BC everyday. It takes awhile. I know now that the 50% prognosis is not accurate, but I did finally just tell myself that even if it is correct, what the heck, Everyone has a 50/50 chance in life. Either you are alive or not. We could all walk out the door each day and get hit on the head by some random act of man or nature and worrying about it doesn't change a thing. Although I was able to keep working during treatments, so I didn't have work to "go back to" I did decide to go back to school nights. At first I used to worry that I was wasting valuable time that I had left by studying instead of spending time with my daughters, horse, friends etc. Now I am just a few quarters from graduating and I am so happy that I decided to just live my life as though I have all the time in the world. Now instead of wondering if I was wasting valuable time with my family, I think, "Wow! look at all the valuable time I did not waste". All of this said of course is not going to help you much since you are right in the middle of treatments and your thought processes right now are what you have to go through, and process, in order to get to where I and other find ourselves after you arrive at the end of the road on your journey. It is truly frightening, so give yourself permission to be scared, because it is really scary and trying to deny that does not make it any easier. Just know that it will get better, it just takes time and travel....

Hi, Agentmo.  Sorry you have to join, but nice to meet you.  I didn't have as many nodes show positive as you, but I had a 6.5 cm mass and 1 of 3 nodes positive.  Am grade 2 and er/pr+ and her2-.  My Oncologist gave me a 79% chance of being alive and cancer free in 10 years.  So far I'm 2 years, 3months out of chemo and no evidence of disease. 

Take care,

deb

Really strange... I don't think that is close at all. My friend who was pregnant when diagnosed had a 4cm tumour and 3 nodes. When she completed treatment they told her her chances of reoccurence was LESS then 10%.She feel that she is done with bc and she is doing great. Maybe that stat was BEFORE treatment. She goes to MD Anderson-top cancer hospital in US.

Welcome AgentMo.  I'm sorry you had to join us and have been getting negative input.  I'm with the others in believing that 50% is way off.  My onc gave me a 35% chance of being cured with just surgery, but 80% with treatment - treatment very similar to yours. It takes time to get to the positive way of thinking.  First I had to process it all, and in a way, mourn the loss of my "carefree" life pre-bc.  Something that helped me immensely during treatment was to keep a list of positives in my cancer notebook (kept all of my doctor's notes in a spiral notebook).  Whenever I read anything, or heard anything that made me feel a little better, I wrote it down there.  That way when I was having a rough day, I could just flip to those pages and remind myself of the positives.  I remember at the beginning of treatment, reading about people putting wigs and scarves in a box in the back corner of the closet, and wishing I could already be at that point in treatment.  Guess what I did yesterday?    You'll get there, too.

The words "locally advanced" sound very ominous.  One of my first post was asking if this was different than a normal stage III dx.  But you've been getting the facts from all the previous posts.  Times have changed and we have more preventative meds with Zometa and the AIs.  And, most of those studies were done on the entire population of women which included those that didn't stick to the program and gave up on taking their AIs or even finishing active treatment.