Help I'm terrified!

Blech, of course you are terrified. You wouldn't be normal if you weren't at certain points of this lovely "journey."

My last chemo was almost exactly 3 years ago. I am fine. I have hair. I go to the gym. I walk my dogs. I work. I have a good time and I feel well.

Mastectomy surgery is usually pretty easy. The DIEP is probably a lot tougher though. I can't help with that, since I skipped the reconstruction. However, other than that, my tumor was also huge, I also had a palpable node (+some others), the neo-adjuvant chemo vastly reduced the tumor and so on.

Try to take one step at a time. Focus on being OK today. Give yourself treats, see friends, make sure to laugh.

Also, find someone to talk to. It gets freakin' exhausting being little Miss Cheerful and Brave for husbands, children, mothers and friends. It can save your sanity to have a professional to talk to once in a while, just to get your worries out of your system and be able to talk problems through freely. Ask at your hospital if they have a counselor available. I only spoke to one a few times, but it was very helpful.

Michelle, you are super-double-welcome. I am so glad you got up the nerve to post. The women (and a couple of men too) around here are lifesavers. Yes, a lot of people have serious trouble dealing with it, and it gets tiring trying to make them feel OK However, you WILL get through this and you WILL be ok.

Do you have more than one kid? What kind of network do you have around you, nearby I mean?

Dear MichelleLg

Welcome to BCO Forum. We are so happy you finally decided to register to post and you've had all this support that you hoped would come with posting. We're sure that when you were just reading, you gleaned much information, but being an active member allows you to post your particular concerns for feedback.

You are in a safe place with lots of caring people who have been through similar and can pass on their valuable experiences to you and be sounding boards to your questions.

We are glad your original lump responded to the chemo so well and wish you the best for the rest of your journey.

The Mods

Michelle, I am glad you have support, that is so important. Resist the impulse to do it all. It really is the best thing you can do for yourself.

As for the surgery, I was thinking about it, and if you want to make things easier for yourself, consider delaying the reconstruction.

Michelle...it is so hard to keep up that positive Polly front and we do that for our children especially!! You have come to the right place to let go and ask questions...

Everything is thrown at us so quickly...surgery, lumpectomy or mastectomy?, chemo, radiation, scans, getting our care team etc...for me, I was dx on dec. 17 2013 and 3 weeks later had lumpectomy, which showed 3 positive nodes involved...11 removed...after thinking I was a low stage...so, when given the choice of lumpectomy or mx, I wanted to do more research and not be rushed into it even though my surgeon suggested an mx due to the condition of my right breast....after 6 months of chemo, 3 other opinions and tumor board input, I opted to keep my lumpectomy....for now. I was able to do that as I had clear margins...I also thought that if I did have a mastectomy, I would wait on reconstruction or opt not to have it at all...I am 55 and my kids are grown and I am married 30 years...it's a very personal decision.

I guess what I am trying to convey is that surgeons may automatically assume that reconstruction is what will be done after mastectomy...like my surgeon did, if I opted for mastectomy...there was just too much thrown at me at once and I wanted to get my life back as quickly as possible after treatment...all my second opinions were ok with me keeping lumpectomy and my research on recurrence rate helped with my decision as well...I just need time to decide...(Mary625, waiting 3 years to do reconstruction...gives me hope if I change my mind about mx!!)

Now it's a year since my lumpectomy, life is back to new normal and I will revisit other options as I have input this next year after treatment and see what docs have to say...I know our tumor size and other things are different, but I wanted to share my experience...I needed to do this in chunks...but I was also given the ok to keep lumpectomy and I was BRAC negative. Good luck and get second opinions...Rosie

Michelle, our situations sound similar. I was Her2+ with a large tumor and lymph node involvement too. It's too early tell how things will work out for me, but I worried about the surgery showing something bad like the cancer had grown. That was not the case as the chemo cleaned out a bunch of my lymph nodes and knocked the tumor down to 1.6 cm. But since I had a bit of residual disease, I enrolled in a clinical trial, so now I get Kadcyla until July. Are you hormone positive or negative?

Michelle- I was diagnosed (age 40) when my children were 4, 6 and 8.  I had a small tumor but 6 positive lymph nodes and 2 nodes had extracapsular extension (cancer coming out of them).  I remember going to a support group and people would gasp when I told them stage and lymph node status.  It made me feel like I was a time bomb.  I stopped going to that support group and joined here.

That was in 2006-almost 9 years ago!!!  My girls are now 13, 15 and 17 and I just turned 49 a few weeks ago.  It is all scary but the best thing I did was to see a counselor.  It is hard trying to seem like things are ok so that your kids don't freak out when you are internally freaking out.  I waited until treatment was over but I wish I had gone sooner. 

There are many of us on this board who are doing well after a stage III diagnosis.  Many others are also doing well but they don't come here often because they are busy living their lives.

Really, 7 cm is large, but there are ladies with larger tumors, so please don't think you have a world record breaker tumor.

As someone else said, if you're through the chemo, you're already on the homestretch, so to speak. Surgery is easy for most of us, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Radiation absolutely works and for most of us have few to no unpleasant side effects. Put yourself in the hands of your doctors and assume that you will have the results that most of us have--which is uneventful surgery and radiation.

Describing your cancer and having people gasp? I wouldn't go back to that group for sure.

Happy New Year! And any more TectonicShift,

That is worth a party!