newly diagnosed with DCIS

Sounds like you are on top of things. Good luck to you!!

Foxy

Hi dancetrancer...followed you here from the motherboard. I'm sorry your results came back as they did. Your heart just stops when you get the news and you feel like you're on a scary roller coaster ride. First of all...you're probably going to have the strangest emotions the next few weeks, and that is completely normal...let yourself go and have your time with this. I have to say, your diagnosis is very promising in that your treatment will likely be very successful and you may be able to avoid chemo at this stage depending on your sentinel node biopsy. But very good sign that it doesn't appear to have invaded the surrounding tissue and that it is confined to the ducts. The fact that you are 100% positive for estrogen is great because you will respond very well to hormone treatments. This also means it is important for you to avoid putting estrogen in your body...birth control pill, plant based estrogen foods like flax seed oil, soy, etc. Your docs treatment plan seems right on target.

Ah, good, dancetrancer ... You found it! Lots and lots and lots of help and support and care here! I'm sorry you are here, but glad you will get the support and help we all need!



L

Yes...tamoxifen is an estrogen blocking medication, and there are others as well. Sorry I'm not well versed in the different medication names because I'm er neg. As for staging, they will wait until after your snb to stage you because if it happens to be in your nodes, which I hope it is NOT, you would be stage 2. Your grade was intermediate nuclear which means grade 2. Not the most aggressive type, so that's good news! There is different terminology on path reports so it can be confusing. Have they scheduled your lumpectomy and snb yet?

Delaying for a few days is not a big deal at all. It's important to feel confident with your treatment plan, which is what a second opinion will do.

Dancer,

I see you found this forum. The ladies here will help you navigate this journey. If you scroll down a bit on this forum you will see a thread started by the lady I told you about, Bessie.

It's called "DCIS facts and misconceptions". I think you will find it very informative as you make the right treatment options for you.

dancetrancer;

(((((HUGS)))))

All I can say right now after reading your posts when I got on this morning is..........CRAP

I'm sorry your call was not what we were all praying for....On the good side, you are exactly where you know you have a ton of support and plenty of people to walk with you on this journey.

I am sure you have a ton of reading to do so I will keep my post short for now. Hang in there.

Dancetrance,

Sounds like you have a good team behind you.

Get copies off ALL reports; Mammo, US, biop, MRI (if you have one; I had one, they are very good but it's important for you to know that they also give a lot of false-positives; many place when doing a breast MRI like to make sure you are something like 7-14 days in your cycle, so remember that...I was never told....) 

dancetrancer it sounds like you are in excellent hands! I obtained an MRI also, and it was at my own suggestion...and I only knew about it because of this site here!

dancertrancer -Sorry that you are over here, but the good thing is that we've all been where you are and I promise that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. My profile is similar to yours: I was also early 40s when diagnosed with grade 2 dcis after a rountine mammogram showed a cluster of micro calcifications and a stereo. biopsy confirmed dcis. I think it's wise to have the brca1&2 testing and mri -- my breast surgeon had me do these before we discussed whether the right course was lumpectomy, mastectomy, or bilat.mast. I wanted to save the breast and sensation, and was fortunate that the mri and brca testing came back favorably, so we moved forward with the lumpectomy and no snb and then on to rads.

I took a little detour when a small amount of invasive was detected in the pathology report from the lumpectomy and underwent a snb second surgery ( I have no regrets about bs not doing the snb at the time of the lumpectomy, just my luck, but one can certainly have it done at the time of lumpectomy, just make the right educated decision for you). Then on to rads., which were far easier than the fear I'd had about them.

This board was so comforting to me when I was where you are; all are happy to share so please do not hesitate to keep posting and good luck.

dancertrancer - Yah, I was very(!) shocked when the final path report came back with idc, as there was no indication on the mri or any hint from the mammo or stereo. biopsy or family history and I fooled myself into thinking that grade 2 dcis couldn't so quickly become idc. BS also had a prelim. path. done while I was under during the lumpectomy and that came out fine.

You can't truly prepare yourself, and you may very well NOT have any idc, I certainly will keep my fingers crossed for you, the vast majority are just dcis! But, even if there is idc, it'll likely be very small and thus, like me, it won't change your treatment plan at all (no chemo, just delayed rads a few weeks because of the snb which came back fine thankfully). So once the shock wore off, I found comfort in knowing that I was going to be treated just like "normal" and then I welcomed the rad. treatments so that any stray cell(s) would get zapped out of there!

I am very thankful that I did get my routine mammogram (digital mammography = early detection), because the darn thing about dcis, we're still not at the point in tests to know which dcis will turn and which won't --- we only know after every bit is cut out and analyzed.  

Hang in there, the mental is truly the hardest part of this whole thing. I remember someone writing that in a post when I was where you are, and it helped me to stay focused on what I needed to do to get through it. Once your plan is in place, it'll go faster and seem easier. 

Keep writing, keep talking.  Its a process to work through. What a busy day you had and no wonder you are so tired. I have been told that I intellectualized it all well but that emotionally I still haven't dealt with it..I disagree but the fact that someone told me that means that it can happen...and it does take longer to assimilate the facts in relation to our own bodies versus facts that are on a website or that we are reading about. Its so different when its our own selves.

((hugs)) PM me anytime.