Need a radical mx due to muscle involvement. Need help!

Think you have to wait six weeks to heal



Has your doc said they want togoback in?

I would suggest talking with both a radiation oncologist and a medical oncologist before you sign up for more surgery. Frequently if they know that the tumor is that large before surgery they will do either chemo or hormone therapy to shrink it before surgery so that the more radical procedure is not necessary. It is too late for that but it is still possible to shrink it out of the muscle with chemo and possibly the nodes also. Then you can do radiation for anything that remains. Each specialty has something to contribute and it is better to talk with them all before you go with everything that just one can do.

I also had a tumor that went in to the muscle but hormone therapy got it out and I got by with a simple mastectomy and a sentinal node disection. The node was positive but since the tumor is not highly aggressive we decided to just do the radiation and let that deal with the nodes. My surgeon was comfortable with that and it is what I wanted. Good luck to you. This may not be nearly as bad as it sounded at first. We all hate to get bad path reports but you have only checked with part of your team. See what the other doctors have to bring to the table.

0

Yes some tough choices. I was in shock when I found out about my cancer too and when the GS suggested chemo to shrink the tumor then surgery and rads I totally freaked. I had never heard of chemo BEFORE surgery and it totally blew my mind.  So after consulting with Johns Hopkins the BS there said, no, lets do surgery then chemo and rads.  Thinking they were the best I went that route.  Now in hindsite I wish I had done the chemo first.  I had to wait 7 weeks to get in to surgery at JH and when my pathology report came back my primary tumor was over 6.5 cm and had 13/15 positive nodes with extracapular extension.  Damn it hindsite is 20 20 isn't it?

Any how, get lots of EXPERT opinions and trust your gut.

Keep us posted,

Sharon

Lalady, I think the chemo regimens are fairly standardized at this point. In your favor is the high grade of your cancer. It is very likely to respond well to chemo. 

I had 4X FEC and 4X taxotere. The docs were most scared of the FEC, but I had very little problem with that. On the other hand, the oncs all thought taxotere should be a breeze, except it wasn't for me. Nothing particularly awful happened and I was fine, but I felt much more tired and out of sorts than I had on the FEC.

My point being that it varies wildly from person to person. My best advice is to take a deep breath and one step at a time. When you encounter problems, even seemingly minor ones, ask your doc. Most oncs these days are ready, able and willing to help with the SEs.

Only other advice I have is to take probiotics. It helps the intestinal problems (which can be quite awesome, but not in a good sense) and it helps against thrush. I was also given neulasta after each chemo. That way my blood counts never got completely awful.

lalady,

It's one year for me. I had chemo, surgery and radiation. According to Onco i have low grade, my tumor didn't shrink a lot but did work some how. I was not sure if chemo was good for me but my onco assusred that it will kill if had spread around. Neulasta is standard now, that maintains blood count. I had surgery after 3 weeks of chemo. Chemo made me tired (i have two little children) but over all i did fine. I tried to eat things that prevent constipation and maintain my liver health. Magic mouth helped a lot to prevent mouth sore (i didn't get mouth sore). I had chemo every other week, first 2 days were worse every time i had chemo. Now they offer low dose oral chemo too (mayo offer me that but  i wanted to be done faster)I also talk to radiation dr, surgen, plastic surgen before i started chemo..

Looking back, I feel i made a good decision. My suggestion is get chemo and it also gives you time to what kind of surgery you want to do and you can do by the time you are done with chemo.

lovujja

He said that? I don't even know how I would take that to mean...bit lets go for 90's.. Such a random jump in age numbers though...