Calling all TNs

Thanks for all the info and support. I have heard good things about the port 0 cath. Tomorrow I should know a bit more. I did read about isolated tumor cells in lymph nodes as not being a reason for further lymph node dissection - so hopefully the onc will agree with my surgeons initial decision.

Annie and Karen -When I tuck something a little odd into a drawer, I often think of the chuckle my kids will have when they find this after I'm gone.  My sisters and I had to clear out so much when we moved our mom from her home to assisted living.  But I understand your need, Karen, to keep  family history intact for another generation.  I was lucky to get my great-great grandmother's cedar chest where we sisters put everything we thought ought to be keepsakes.  But I need to do what you seem to be doing:  labeling everything.  So admire your strength Annie!

Adajio- I also loved having a port for infusions.  It bugged me a lot, but I considered it the price of not damaging my veins.  I had it removed once I knew I was NED.

DH and I have had the TV on the weather channel all day today.  We're just holding our breath that everyone and everything will be ok.  Jan

I was diagnosed with TNBC on 8/6/2012, 3 months after turning 41. I am stage III, grade 3 with 6 positive nodes and BC in one breast. I am the first person in my family to be diagnosed with breast cancer, so after finding a lump, I kept putting off the doctor thinking that there was no way it was BC. Boy was I wrong! Hope3x, I also have a lot of pain in my breast and my armpit and actually it got worse after my chemo started and the breast started to shrink. I have had 4 AC treatments and my first Taxol treatment last week. AC was hard, Taxol is horrifying....the pain is unbearable! My whole body is in unbearable pain from the waist down. Has anyone else experienced pain like this with Taxol and if so, what did you do to aleviate the pain? I have 4 months of weekly Taxol treatments to look forward to and I understand that this drug builds up in your system, so it's going to get worse. After a total of 6 months of chemo, I am having a double radical mastectomy and then 3 months of radiation.

I can't help but to keep focusing on the 55% chance of survival for women diagnosed similarly to me. I honestly am afraid I'm going to go through all of this hell to just end up dead within 5 years anyway and I lost my time and a good quality of life to chemo and the awful side effects. I guess what I need to hear is that other women have survived who were in a similar situation, stage III, grade 3, node positive, triple negative, early 40's. I know I shouldn't focus on the negative, but in my mind, I'm being a realist. I would rather be prepared than to think everything is going to be okay, when really, it's not.

Sorry to be such a downer...I think my absolute fear has given way to absolute depression.

Jenn

Welcome to our group Jenn.  You're in a safe place where we're all in this together.  You're NOT alone!!!  I was 33 when diagnosed with no family history.  I am stage 2 level 3 with no nodes, TN.  So I am not able to relate to your stage 3 part but I wanted to just reply to the Taxol piece.  I had SEVERE back pain and well really just pain, no energy, hard to breathe and just a general feeling of crap which turned into a pretty significant depression.  When I went to my MO after my first Taxol my red blood cells were really low so I had a blood transfusion and that helped a lot!!!  So maybe ask about your red blood levels.  Warm baths with salts and a heating pad helped me.  Also I took Tylenol for Arthritis pain because it's 8 hour Tylenol.  I was told I could not take Advil when having chemo so my MO suggested an 8 hour Tylenol.  That really helped too.  Are you getting a needle for your white cells?  I found that with the bone pain from Taxol and the bone pain from my Neulasta shot, it was severe bone pain for several days.  If all else fails, you're one step closer to being done with each treatment.  You're more then half way there!!!!  YOU CAN DO THIS.  Hang in there and again, we're right here whenever you need us xoxo

5th Sib and Jenn -So glad you found this thread.  We are a sisterhood of very supportive women.  I was 68 when diagnosed 20 months ago.  Jenn your description of pain and discouragemnt pretty much matches how I felt during chemo.  I had ACT all at once every 3 weeks for six times.  I had a few good days at the end of each cycle, but mostly I was too miserable to go farther from my bed than the bathroom.  Many times I was ready to give it up, but DH hung onto me and kept me going.  I'm so much stronger now than at the start of my journey.  I have faith in you.

5th - You are likely still in the shell shock stage, as we all were for a time. As you learn more about your specific case, I think you will feel better.  Ask all the questions you want.  Someone here will have helpful suggestions.  Taking a "secretary" with you to doctor appointments will help lots. 

Wishing you both strength as you take on this crap.  Jan

Good morning to all the lovely ladies and welcome to the new ladies.

Had a brilliant time in Belgium, need a holiday to recover.

Just catching up with all the posts.

More stories of folks who manage to survive with minimal intelligence...

1. When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim
during a hold-up in Long Beach, California would-be robber James Elliot
did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel
and tried
the trigger again. This time it worked.

2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat-cutting
machine and after a little shopping around, submitted a claim to his
insurance company. The company expecting negligence sent out one of its
men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and he also lost a
finger.
The chef's claim was approved.

3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car
during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman
had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.

4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus
driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be
transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit
his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered
everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to
the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very
excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies.
The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.

5. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious
head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received
the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how
close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the
counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer,
the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which
the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and
fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he
got from the drawer...
$15. [If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime
committed?]

7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that
he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some
booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his
head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be
thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window
was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.

8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man
grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the
woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher.
Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in
the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of
the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied,
"Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."

9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a
Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 5 A.M., flashed a gun, and
demanded cash.
The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash
register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the
clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The man, frustrated,
walked away. [*A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER]

10. When a man 20 attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked
on a Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police
arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor
home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted
to steal gasoline and plugged his siphon hose into the motor home's
sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press
charges saying, that it was the best laugh he'd ever had.

Some guy bought a new fridge for his house. To get rid of his old fridge, he put it in his front yard and hung a sign on it saying: "Free to good home. You want it, you take it." For three days the fridge sat there without even one person looking twice at it. He eventually decided that people were too un-trusting of this deal. It looked to good to be true, so he changed the sign to read: "Fridge for sale $50." The next day someone stole it.

I used to work in technical support for a 24/7 call centre. One day I got a call from an individual who asked what hours the call centre was open. I told him, "The number you dialled is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week." He responded, "Is that Eastern or Pacific time?" Wanting to end the call quickly, I said, "Uh, Pacific"

My colleague and I were eating our lunch in our cafeteria, when we overheard one of the administrative assistants talking about the sunburn she got on her weekend drive to the shore. She drove down in a convertible, but "didn't think she'd get sunburned because the car was moving

My friends and I were on a beer run and noticed that the cases were discounted 10%. Since it was a big party, we bought 2 cases. The cashier multiplied 2 times 10% and gave us a 20% discount

I was hanging out with a friend when we saw a woman with a nose ring attached to an earring by a chain. My friend said, "Wouldn't the chain rip out every time she turned her head?" I explained that a person's nose and ear remain the same distance apart no matter which way the head is turned

I couldn't find my luggage at the airport baggage area. So I went to the lost luggage office and told the woman there that my bags never showed up. She smiled and told me not to worry because she was a trained professional and I was in good hands. "Now," she asked me, "has your plane arrived yet?"..

Hopex3 - My first indication of cancer was pain in the breast radiating to the armpit. In fact when I first went to my doctor, she told me I had shingles and it was absolutely no cancer because there were no lumphs whatsoever. How wrong she was. Six months later a lump appeared and the pain was excruciating - like a nerve pain. So yes, sometimes cancer does cause a lot of pain. My breast surgeon said that the tumor was entwined around nerves which is why I had a lot of pain. The lump is now gone (surgery) and so is the pain. Now on to the next step of chemotherapy. Perhaps you have the nerve involvement that I had!!

5th Sib - I understand the shock - I was emotionally numb for at least two weeks. I had the same feedback from the surgeon - surgery, then radiation - now with being triple negative - unfortunately, chemo looms large in the picture. I still can't wrap my mind around it. 

For all of our new ladies to the thread

5th Sib - My thoughts are with you. TN is definitely a treatment challenge. As one of my support group members told me last year - "Chemo is our friend" - great, huh? The same thing happened to me - perfect mammo one year before dx. When I received my first dx., I got so tired of people asking me when I had my last mammo.- I felt like they were insinuating that I didn't have mammos, or it would have been a smaller tumor if I had a mammo when I was supposed to. 

It's a tough journey, but there are wonderful people on this thread and other threads who will help you through. 

Sherry

Thanks, Annie!  My daughter insisted that I should use that picture.  Maybe my DSIL used the soft focus feature on the camera!  I think the blue color of my coat is helpful.