I Want More than 5 years Is There a Chance?

I'm not stage 3, but I have a Komen sister who is a 23 year survivor of Stage 3 breast cancer, and she was hormone negative with something like 21 positive nodes.  Diagnosed in her early 30's with a very young daughter at home.  She lives a great life and inspires all of us at Komen.

I have another friend, diagnosed 55 years ago at the age of 25 with breast cancer, not sure what stage, but she has lived a wonderful life and is a hero to me.  She volunteers with me on some of our local advocacy committees and she is a force of nature!  There are no guarantees to any of us living in this world. I have a friend who lost her 21 year old son two years ago to a skydiving accident.  We are only guaranteed this moment.  Enjoy your life, live it large, and make a huge footprint on this world!

I am 4 1/2 years past my last diagnoses...skin mets.  Almost eleven years survival total.  My son was four when first diagnosed and is now almost 15!!  Somthing to celebrate!

Shana, I think it is completely normal to worry and think about this once in a while. I know I certainly have bouts of it, especially at testing time. At the same time, even at stage III, the stats show me that ten years out I still have a better than 50/50 chance of being around. So I do all the treatment, as imperfect as it still is, watch my diet, do my exercise and hope for the best. I figure the longer I can hold on, the better the chance of better treatment down the pike.

Karody, that reminds me of my mom. When I was a kid, she had an extreme fear of flying. To the point that she had to take valium to get on a plane. She and my dad traveled a lot, including to exotic, out of the way places (Afghanistan in the 60s, for example). 

Years later I noticed that she was fine flying and I asked what happened. "You guys grew up," she said. Her own mother was a "Mommy Dearest" type mother and while we were small, my mother was terrified that the plane would crash, leaving us orphaned and raised by her mother. 

Hey Barb,

Haven't been around much lately, been too scared to stay close.   I get you.  I have a 16 yo daughter (almost) and a 13 yo son and I just PRAY I can be there for them in the future.  I truly remeber before my dx ( and I SWEAR I KNEW SOMEHTING was wrong) and while I was rocking her that Please let me be there to walk her down the isle.  So weird as this was MANY years before my dx

 Love,

Sharon

I'm on the "50 year plan."

When I first saw my surgeon, two weeks after DX, he first said the tumor was too big for surgery.  And my lymph nodes were matted.  This of course scared the crap out of us.  Then he said we'd do chemo first, hoping to shrink the tumor and nodes so surgery could be done successfully.  Then, almost as an aside, he said we're on the "50 year plan."

That was the single best thing I heard from any of my mainstream docs.  Yes, the odds of surviving were not as good for me as they would be for someone with a tiny little stage 1A tumor with no node involvement, but it's still certainly possible to live 50 years from a stage III dx.  Unless, I suppose, you're 80 when you get the dx!  I was 45 at dx and plan to die of a relatively rare condition known as "almost a hundred." 

Remember 2 things:

1)  The "5 year survival rate" is how many are still alive after 5 years.  It doesn't say anything about how long they live past that time.  As someone else said, that's just a common reference point used by researchers.

2)  Those stats are old!  They are usually based on people diagnosed 12-15 years ago!  We have better meds now than then, better support to help us stay healthy through treatment.  Heck - for those of us her2+++ many of those stats don't include use of herceptin!

Actually, I did AC and T dose dense, every two weeks back in January of 2003, and the T in my case was TAXOTERE. I was the first patient my onc had who did this. Glad to know it is now the standard of care.

I also did chemo every 3 weeks.  My onc says he gave me the most aggressive treatment available to him so .... hope that was good enough. One thing I do not know and am afraid to ask is whether I am IBC, IDC, DCIS? I am not sure I want to know the answer. Maybe being in the dark is better that way I don't dwell on the odds for each. Is there some criteria for each? I see my onc in January and will break down and ask him.  I asked once about my reoccurence rate, 52%, and after that I didn't want to know anything else.