What was time between diagnosis and treatment?
Comments
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Resigned: becareful before refusing all steroids.....they are given to keep you from having a bad reaction to the chemo. Please discuss with both your Docs prior. Best of luck.
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yes! Four months until treatment for a stage 3 is a longer time than most. I did double mast within 1 week of dx then chemo 4 weeks later
If you are waiting to speed things up now- perhaps your oncologist can help
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Wow. If I lose 25 pounds from chemo I'll be 65 pounds. Guess that's why my doctor wants me on steroids. But I've always weighed around 90 pounds my entire life! I'm 5 foot 4 in and have zero body fat. I'd like to keep it that way, the steroids scare me.
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They are recommending these things for a reason not just because they want you to suffer. Steroids are not just to keep up your appetite, they are used because your body can have allergic reactions to chemo. I'm scared to drive, but I have to do it or stay in one place for the rest of my life. Being scared is no reason to refuse medical recommendations.
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When I say that steroids scare me i mean all the side effects and risks that aren't there when you choose natural remedies. i don' twant to get into an arguement about treatment, every body has to do whats best for them. I know my body better than these doctors and I know a whole lot more about natural remedies than they do. I've agreed to do the chemo but that doesn't mean that i have to do every single thing the doctors tell me to do. They are trained technicians not gods!
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Not saying you have to do what they are saying, but you seem to be fighting them at every single step. Questioning is one thing, but making a decision based on fear of things that haven't happened (like side effects) is another. Doctors are not gods, but they are much more than 'trained technicians'. I was on steroids and lost weight while on chemo, so not everyone gains while on steroids. Being an athlete you will more than likely be in a better position to ward off side effects because of your good health.
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It's true that being an athelete has already helped a lot. They tried to scare me with all this stuff after the surgery to remove my nodes and I ran a 10K a few days later without any problems!
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The steroids are not given every day during the entire chemo time but at the time of infusion to try to prevent serious reactions. It is/can be given orally the day before infusion and/or for a day or 2 more (different Drs - different plans). So 'you' are not being over loaded with steroids like some sport's pebbles do to enhance preformance. In some cases they also allow for healing and pain relief. About a year after chemo, I developed a horrendous pain above and behind eye that no normal pain med would work on. After a scan and seeing the eye Dr it was decided that a nerve was 'aggravated' and dex was given to allow it to 'simmer down'/relax - it worked immediately to rid the pain. Took 1 a day for 10 days and never have had any more issues in the area. Certainly steroids can cause problems when used indiscriminately or for the wrong reasons, but they can also be very helpful at some times or issues. Like suppressing bad reactions to chemo.
I, too, did not gain weight - I lost weight. I was within appropriate weight range though slightly on the higher side for my height and age (63 at the tiime) when I started chemo and was very glad I had that weight I could lose without becoming emaciated /damaging my body. I, too, was in very good physical shape - riding/training 4 horses daily and doing all their care myself and some bicycling thrown in. I also went into chemo in very good health, just some arthritis in my upper back. I think this helped in getting through 4 DD A/C neoadjuvant and 12 Taxol adjuvant with no health issues, (no infections or low blood counts, etc.).
We are each so different in what our life's experiences have been which makes us who/what we are. We each have to do what we will but at times it can be good to listen to others and perhaps get a new perspective that had not occured to us. Just my thoughts.
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I just want to add that most of the replies you have received are from women who are not triple negative. Triple Negative is a very aggressive cancer, and should be treated as quickly as possible, especially given the size of your tumor. It grows very fast. I am triple negative and had a lumpectomy within 2 weeks, and chemo was started 2 weeks after that. Good luck and hope your chemo starts soon. Since we can't take hormonals to prevent recurrence, chemo is absolutely important to fight this beast.
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What elindy said is very true!
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I would imagine that the doctors have in fact treated many endurance athletes, just like you, and are probably used to it.
I tend to pursue natural remedies first, had my babies naturally with midwives, don't vaccinate, eat organic and buy directly from farmers whenever possible....I'm not even getting reconstruction because I don't want a foreign substance in my body. But getting a breast cancer diagnosis at 29, I have to do more than what I was doing to stay healthy in the first place. Cancer doesn't discriminate. It doesn't care whether or not you deserve it (no one does). I've read a lot of your posts, and I understand why you feel the way you do, but you need to realize that even with your excellent diet and fitness routines, you have developed a very aggressive and dangerous cancer. Doing more of the same things that you have been doing is great, but it is not going to treat this cancer, just as it hasn't prevented it. I think you should definitely be proud of yourself and grateful you are in such great shape but realize that this may be the time to really commit to going the Western medicine route. Definitely keep eating right, keep exercising, keep seeing homeopaths or herbalists or whatever CAM specialists you want to see, but commit fully to a treatment plan that has been medically proven to work. Chemo is poison, I agree. But you have to do to something to kill the cancer before it kills you, and that is going to require more than just a raw organic diet. You are tiny, so you are going to need steroids. I'm not saying to comply blindly with whatever someone in a white coat tells you to do, but I'm saying if you wait to act until you have fully researched every angle of every issues, or if your initial reaction is to refuse everything as if you're constantly working from the assumption that you know better than your doctors, that they have sinister or self serving ulterior motives, then you are not going to get far in beating this disease. I understand why you keep saying that you know your body better than anyone---I've said that to many a doctor and midwife--but unless I've misunderstood something, you didn't know you had cancer until a medical test detected it. I'm not saying that you should have known, by any means...I'm saying that even when we treat our bodies exactly as we should, the reality is that they sometimes betray us. Whether from a genetic mutation, or pollution in the air, or flame retardants on our sofas--who knows why these things happen?!
I guess what I'm trying to say is that everything you have done everything "right" and yet, cancer happened. So it's time to bring out the big guns. There are a lot of times that the best course of action is to wait until you are sure of things before acting. I think stage 3 cancer isn't one of them. Act now, continue to research, supplement your treatment with holistic care, and even modify your treatment plan down the road. But don't do nothing while you figure it out.
I'm preaching to myself here too...I don't have invasive cancer, just DCIS, but I wanted to delay treatment til March when it would be more convenient for me! lol
I hope none of this has come off as abrasive. Just concerned for you and understand what it's like to have to accept a treatment that goes against your very nature. -
I have had mammograms since I was 35. I had 3 mammograms and 3 ultrasounds in the last 14 months and NONE of them detected my Triple Negateve Breast Cancer. Once I knew I had cancer I was getting my first chemo 30 days later. I just wanted to have a plan to kick cancer's butt. By the time I finish chemo, surgery and radiation it will be July of next year so I wanted to get this over so my life could go back to normal
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I was diagnosed 9/24/14 and had surgery (BMX) on 10/24/14 with TE placement. I will start chemo 12/1/14 then radiation on down the road.
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