chemo>surgery?

Mandala, I had chemo both before and after my BMX. I have not had any recon, but also had 30 rad treatments. They gave three weeks off between the last chemo and the surgery. Then I had another three or four weeks after surgery before I started chemo again.



The only other surgery I had ever had was a C-section almost twenty years ago, when my daughter was born. As I remember it, I had more pain and trouble with the C than I had with the BMX. That is not to say that it is a cake walk, it isn't obviously, but I was able to walk around pretty much as soon as I was out of recovery, which was nice. They did give me pain pills every four hours and I did take them. But it was not horifically painful at any point. It was more uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. The discomfort continued on and off for a long time, pulling, itchiness etc, but actual pain was only a few days.

Mandala--I also had chemo before surgery. I don't think it changed my reaction to the surgery at all. I recovered from it on about the same schedule as those who had surgery first. One added benefit--at least I didn't have to worry about how I was going to wash my hair after surgery! Seriously, though, I do think the chemo was helpful on my nodes. I too have seen my nodes from MRI before treatment, and I would describe them as looking like a clump of spaghetti lit up all over the image. I still had a lot of nodes at surgery, but was told I probably would have had 25 positive without the chemo. Also having the chemo first gives you more time to prepare for the surgery and make your decisions. That said, there's nothing good about this whole thing, but you are not alone and there are others of us who have gone this same route.

Hi MandalaB.  I'm not there yet but I'll be doing surgery after chemo.  Just wanted to say hello since there aren't as many of us doing the neoadjuvant route.  My sig still says IIb for the sake of optimism but I was told I'm "II or III" now.  I have a big ol' grape-size lump plus a few smaller little ropy things in the axilla.  Not liking those at all!  As if the lump in the breast isn't scary enough.

I like the point about hair washing. :-)

I did BMX & ALND after chemo...large tumors, needed to be shrunk for surgery.  I had a good surgery experience, clean margins and no problems.  Chemo was the absolute worse thing for me, everything else went much better.  I wasn't as sore as I thought I would be, drains were the worse part.  Having to wear them, having to empty them and having them removed wasn't pleasant.  I would suggest make sure you get some PT on the arm or make sure you work it out better than I did.  I guarded mine and it got very stiff so, when I went into rads exactly 1 month to the day from surgery they had to tape my arm into the sturrup.  It hurt really bad and went to sleep immediatly.  I hope all goes well for you, let us know.

I don't know if they remove superclav nodes or not, as mine were clean, but they can give them radiation as I had in that area. My order of treatment was chemo, surgery and rads. Yours may be different, but it sounds like you may be seeing a radiation oncologist.

Hi tonya15...I didn't have supraclavicle but did have intermammary + nodes and they don't take those.  They do use chemo to get them and blast them with rads.  As of my last scan they were clear and chemo/rads was successful, I was 2 yrs out on the 28th.  I hope you don't have to join us here but if so it's a great forum with loads of support and info. 

Thanks Jennyboog! I hope radiation works on nodes! Glad tou are doing so good! So how painful is radiation on the neck area? Did you put anything on neck to help reddness or any irritation? And how was your experience with the chemo? I am so scared of it all.

Mandala, I also had neoadjuvant chemotherapy prior to a mastectomy.  I think historically it wasn't very common but is becoming more and more common.

My understanding is that it doesn't change the prognosis unless you need to shrink the tumor prior to surgery.

What I liked about having chemotherapy first, as others have stated, is that I got to see how my cancer responded to chemotherapy.  Also, it was nice to get the hardest part of the treatment over first.  

Mary625, How many neck nodes did you have radiated? Did you have any axillary rad? I was wondering if you take the axillary nodes out, do you still have rad on this area? Thanks again for all the info. It really helps me. This fri. I find out my pet scan results so I am so nervous and my anxiety is out the roof!!!!! I take it you had a port in for the chemo? How was that? I really just want to get started so I can get this cancer out of me. when I look at my breasts, I am beginning to hate them. Did you have breast implants put in? I don't know how I feel about that yet. I think I want both breasts off so I dont have to worry about it coming back in the other breast in the future. What made you only remove the one breast? I think I read that you had a mx only on the right? Sorry for so many questions. I am just so scared about this whole ordeal ahead of me.

Tonya, of course you are scared and I am sorry you have to go through this.



I chose a double mastectomy. I had ILC, which is quite likely to recur in the other breast. There were already some suspicious changes in the "good" breast, although the docs swore up and down it wasn't cancer. Once they explained what the follow-up would be on the good breast, I decided to just get rid of it while we were doing surgery anyway. I have no regrets.



Initially they were telling me I could get recon at the same time, but once they saw how serious it was and realized I would need extensive rads, they advised against it and told me I would have to wait. At first that was a bit hard, but now I am grateful for the extra time to think it over and look atbthe different options,pictures etc. I am almost a year out from the surgery, and for the time being I don't think I will ever get recon. I really am not convinced by any of the methods I have seen, and I have no desire to have more surgery, possible complications etc. Also, I am very picky about how things look and every time I see a pretty recon job, it has been done as part of a prophylactic or early stage skin-sparing BMX. In other words, I sincerely doubt that given my situation, I would end up with a job that would be acceptable to me.