Calling all TNs

Ladies. please help me out!! A friend of mine that is a 4 year survivor (not TN) is telling me that the treatments I will be receiving starting Thursday are not right for me-they should be more aggressive. I will be getting 4tx of Taxotere/Cytoxan. What do you all think? I am a little angry that she is telling me this just as I am about to start Tx.

Tiffany C.

Tiffany, first off, I think your friend is out of line. She's not a doctor and no 2 people/cancers are identical. There are so many factors. That said, from your diagnosis: Stage 1, 1 cm. no nodes, from what I've seen from the others, your treatment is protocol and therefore appropriate for your diagnosis. I'm sure your doctor wouldn't hesitate to treat you more aggressively if needed. Thank God, you caught it early and that's not called for.  My warmest wishes to you!

maybe her diagnosis was worse

some dont know that there is a difference

TifJ- excuse me, but WTF? What kind of "friend" puts that kind of doubt into an already scared person's head one week before treatment? Does this "friend" have a medical degree? Is it in oncology. I think not (to both).

Your treatment is *exactly* what many of us have had for this type of diagnosis. Have we all been mis "treated?" Of course not. Your regimen sounds completely reasonable for a node negative 1cm tumor. Tell your friend to keep her opinions to herself. With "friends" like that who needs enemies?

Sorry, but I have a reputation as a "shoot from the hip" type of gal in here. Good thing your friend is not in my sights.

LJ - I just wanted to send some happy fall thoughts your way and let you know I'm thinking of you. I wish I had more to offer or some great words of wisdom, but right now I don't.  (((hugs))) to you and your family and I'm glad to hear you're doing well.

I seem to have developed high blood pressure for the first time in my life, even through chemo it stayed fairly low.  Not sure what's going on, but will be following up again in 2 months and if nothing has changed I'll have to take medication and maybe have some tests run- ugh!!!  I am walking daily and am watching what I eat, but will now have to be extra careful with sodium.  

Hope everyone is having a good evening.

Hi all of you wonderful women. I hope you all had a great day. Lynn and Monik I hope your surgery went as well as mine. Isn't it great to have the motherlode out of you? It sure felt great to me. I believe my petscan today will come out clean as a whistle , I get my results tomorrow or Thursday.

Alright Hhfhiedi waiting for my daily dose. Loved the cat. I actually worked in a grooming pet store for a short while when I was a kid, man, sure made me laugh out loud, literally. Thanks.

Jenn3- I was diagnosed with high blood pressure and they were going to put me on meds but then I got cancer and they forgot about it. LOL. My sister suggested I try fish oil (the real stuff 'Nordic Naturals' keep it refrigerated not the capsule baloney) It's expensive but I combine that with grape juice (The real stuff with no sugar) anyway my blood pressure is now fabulous and and has been since last May it only took about two months. I'm not a doctor but my blood pressure had been increasingly high for the last two years. They started with "Let's keep an eye on it" to " We need to talk meds" then I mentioned my lump. Anyway it is better than normal now. I hope it works for you too. 

Watched that video today from the Discovery channel. It was extremely uplifting to me. Wow! The remission of 3 years ( not 3 months) sounds like a lifetime to me. "They" are coming out with new treatments all of the time looking forward to 3 becoming 10 and more.  

The best thing that happened to me today was having a wonderful dinner tonight with my son and sister. Just having a good time laughing and enjoying being together. I'm looking forward to seeing my daughter and grandson tomorrow. Life is good until we realize how GREAT it really is.

Sweet dreams! 

For LJ-

Laurajane:  Glad to hear you are still up and full of love an light!  Big hugs and hoping everything is clean on your scan!  Best thing that happened today is hearing that you are doing well!!!

hhfheidi:  That is soooo cute!  My friend sent me a youtube video of two cats who play "paddy cake".  It's hilarious... now if I could just figure out how to post it here!

MonikaV:  Glad to hear they are letting you go home tomorrow.  Keep us posted and may you have a good night's sleep!

Lynne:  Hope you are doing well, also!

MonikaV - glad your surgery went well.  Hope your recovery goes smooth.

Does anyone know if us TN's get onco typed?  I keep reading about onco type scores but my onc never mentioned it to me.  Just curious.  If we do I obviously want to get it:)  Thanks

Thanks for the input everyone! I truly think my treatment is appropriate as well.

Angelisa - please let me know what you find out during your second opinion.

Heidi - don't be sorry! You're absolutely right. She is out of line (especially) 2 days before treatment begins! Thanks!

Hi Blindsided - welcome to the thread!  I had TC and will send to a private message with tips onthe regimen tonight after I get home from work.

TifJ, I'll also send TC tips to you.

I hope you're all having a great day ladies.  Today is the one year anniversary of when I got the awful call from my surgeon's office with my diagnosis. Onwards and upwards and I'm now heading off to a nice lunch!

MonikaV:  Good to hear you are doing well. I have been thinking about you.

Thank you everyone for the well wishes.  I had surgery Monday at 9:00 and it went well.  I went home at 2:30 that day.  A nurse comes each day to check me.  I have something called a pain ball that delivers medicine into the wound area.  That area is numb so I have not had a lot of pain.  Did anyone else have this?  I had not heard of it before.

Laurajane:  It is good to hear from you. I hope I do as well as you.

Heidi:  I love your cat pics.

Well I am sleepy now.  Hope everyone has a good day, Monika, hope you get to go home today.

So I had a second opinion today. I asked about the oncotype test, and it isn't recommended for triple negatives and is only used mainly for hormone positive people with early stage to determine if chemo is necessary.  And yes, Ki67 doesn't do us much good because the majority of TN's is grade 3 anyway.  I went to the state university for my opinion, and the onc's there pretty much agree with my first onc... 4 rounds of TC every 3 weeks.  The onc agreed adriamycin would be overkill, and not standard of care for such early found BC.  Same with dose dense.  4 rounds of TC (C being cytoxan) is standard of care.  There have been some small studies done using Carboplatin, and those small studies have shown very good preliminary results for TN's response, but it is not considered standard of care at this point for early stage cancer and they're waiting for further larger studies.  However, my case is of interest to them and they want to test the tissues again to verify I did actually have IDC and not just DCIS. I can't imagine I had only DCIS... the tissue from biopsy was stained to see that it was invasive... and when I said this to the onc, he said that it was more of how the staining was interpreted, thus the interpretation may have been wrong. Well, it'd sure be cool not to have to have chemo but I'm not holding my breath. So I'll know something more on that in a couple of weeks. I wish I was closer to the university because I really liked them better, but I can't see driving slightly over an hour one way in the winter to have chemo. He agreed and said the treatment drugs were the same no matter what area of the country you're in. They were really nice and I'd highly recommend them for a 2nd opinion to anyone.   Oh, also he said there is a clinical trial for TN's with DCIS only and if I end up falling into that group, he will let me know about it.  I'd still be surprised if it was all DCIS, not that it couldn't happen... talk about a miracle if it did...

TifJ, cream of chicken soup sounds yummy, especially on a cool, windy day. I like it with oyster crackers. And I don't have any of that soup in the house. Adding that to my grocery list...