Help , ! Results are in

Hi, and sorry you have joined the club. 

This could be a helpful section to read, to start off: 

Pathology Report

Also, if they say that you are triple negative, you may want to read this section:

Triple Negative 

We're here for you. Also, you may want to post in the Just Diagnosed forum. 

Thinking of you, 

The Mods

You may think I am crazy, but the grade 3 (histologic grade) means you breast cancer is aggressive and fast growing (many cells dividing) and that is good news.  Chemotherapy targets cells that are in the process of dividing which means the chemo will be very effective for you.

You will be spared the misery of the anti-hormonals.

Herceptin only works for HER2 positive tumors, so it will not be given to you.

Risk of recurrence is different for hormone negative tumors than hormone positive tumors.  Our highest chance of recurrence is in the first two years after chemo is finished (that is how my oncologist timed it; some people use the surgery date).   After that, the risks starts to drop, until at 5 years, your risk is down to 2%.  After five years it continues to drop to almost zero.  After 10 years, it is said hormone negatives can consider themselves "cured."  

Hormone positive tumors are often slow growing.  Chemo may not be as effective or of no use. The anti-hormonals will deprive the cells of the hormones that they need to grow and make the cells dormant, but once the drugs are stopped at five years, chances of recurrence start to rise.  That is why many times when you see someone who has metastasized 10-20 years after the original breast cancer was treated, the cancer was hormone positive.

So while we get to sweat out the first two years waiting for the possible recurrence shoe to drop, we do get to start relaxing on the "what if" scenarios after two years.

I am almost 8 years out from chemo, 7 from herceptin, and am healthy and NED.  Your chances are high that you will be saying the same thing in 8 years.

Tobycc,

What I wrote to you was the result of the years of reading after my diagnosis.  Like you, I was terrified at the beginning.  However, I am now happy that my breast cancer was early stage and very aggressive.  I am happy that I am hormone negative (also HER2+) and that chemo was very effective.  I am happy that while I had to sweat out those first few years of recurrence risk, I could slowly start to relax and now, my risk is down around zero.

What doesn't show in my DX status at the bottom of the post was that my tumor was 1.75 cm.  I had no positive nodes.

I see you are having CT for chemo.  I had 4 AC.  My doctor did not use any of the Taxol family on me because I told her that when I am working in the yard and pruning the yews (taxus family from which taxol is derived), I develop a itchy contact rash.  She was happy I told her and dropped the taxol from the ACT regime she had been planning on.

Good luck on Friday.