My (perhaps controversial) thoughts as a "newbie" to CA.

Trill - the American Cancer Society has a website and catalog called TLC (www.tlcdirect.org) that has wigs, hats and scarves that are less expensive and cute. I have a friend who has purchased several in her battle with breast cancer and they are really cute. Again, take it one step at a time and wait until you meet with your medical oncologist until looking at what happens after your surgery. Surgery and recovery are the first things you can focus on!

Another thing to keep in mind is that each of us is different in pain threshold. For whatever reason, I seem to have a high pain threshold and thus have a pretty easy time tolerating whatever happens. I even had a perforated bowel which is reportedly excruciatingly painful, that I barely felt. I barely feel injections, usually not at all, and never have numbing done. I've had 2 lumpectomies and 1 mastectomy and I didn't find them very different in terms of pain, recovery, etc. (The drains are irritating but not painful). I've had 2 breast reductions and didn't find that painful either. I've had a tissue expander inserted and never felt a bit of discomfort from filling the expander. I am very pale skinned but radiation didn't burn me. Got a little pink by the end. Chemo didn't really affect me much until the third cycle, except of course for the hair loss. I didn't get away with not losing hair!

So, remember that your experience can be very different from others and it might be more positive than you fear. Except for surgery, most treatments can be moderated for unacceptable side effects as you go along. Emend is great for nausea, I had a couple of infusions without it and there's definitely a big difference.

Here's to hoping that you have an acceptable time in treatment.

Your 'friend' is 'sorta' a jerk, and definitely wrong. The 5 year statistic is about ladies diagnosed at Stage IV (and many at Stage IV live long beyond that statistic too). Here is a direct quote from the National Breast Cancer Foundation about Stage I Breast Cancer (the bolding is added by me): "Breast cancer at this stage is very treatable and survivable. When breast cancer is caught and treated at Stage 1, an early and localized stage, the 5-year survival rates are about 98%."

5 YEARS? no wonder you dove into the chocolate. Maybe she meant 5 years on a average with no treatment? Or 5 years until your small risk of reoccurance drops to almost nothing? Because it's absolutely not true that 5 year survival is the norm with treatment. Sorry. Not to be unkind, but your friend is completely mistaken. And, what a horrid thing to say! Yrrrf. I'm sorry you heard that, but it's just not true.

Trill - for many of us, our diagnosis of breast cancer is the first time we have been given a percentage for living ten years out. Many on this forum have reinforced the fact that our percentage is either 100% to have BC reoccur (if it does come back), or 0% if it doesn't come back. Percentages really don't mean a thing. There is a way to turn your thoughts into a positive direction in your life though.

I decided that I was going to throw everything at this cancer that I could, and then I was going to not give it any power over me. I questioned myself about if I only have ten more years to live, what would I regret that I didn't do? I gave myself the power to say "no" to things that I didn't want to do and I now stand up for myself. And I challenged myself to accomplish things that I had been putting off and wanted to do. I had been collecting genealogy information on my families for over forty years and it all resided in binders that would mean nothing to anyone else but me. I started forming it into books for each family and distributed it to cousins on all sides of my husband's and my family. It took me a year to write the seven books that totaled over 4700 pages but I finished the task. Without my BC diagnosis, I don't know if I would ever have been motivated.

Have you made a family cookbook that would be appreciated by members of your family and friends? Have you labeled photographs with names on the back? There are so many things we hope to get around to doing "one day." I decided my one day was now.

All this is stuff you can keep in the back of your mind when you are tired of thinking about cancer. Your writing is beautiful and I am convinced you have books in your that you need to write and share with others.

Hugs!

I trust pubmed. Here is an article about chemo and TNBC. I forgot how large your tumour was. Care to mention that again so I don't have to go back in posts?

Grade 3 means it will most generally respond very well to chemo. Lower grade cancers may not respond as well. Nope, survival after 5 years is still to be expected with a grade 3 tumor. That's what mine was.

They  probably won't do radiation if no lymph node are involved and you have a mastectomy, just chemo.  My friend was diagnosed with triple negative, stage 1, grade 3, 4 1/2 years ago, she's going strong - no evidence of disease, etc..   she had a unilateral mastectomy and chemo.

My breasts were 5 lbs. each. :-) One of the reason I chose mastectomy over lumpectomy was to avoid radiation.

I am working on weight loss and by just dropping the first 25 I was off blood pressure meds and blood sugar was normal. I lost a bit more (still 244) and fatty liver is gone so losing definitely makes a difference. My oncologist wouldn't give me adriamycin because of effects on the heart because my brother had had a heart attack. Make sure you know the risks of each drug they propose and take your time deciding.

My RO told me that the trend now is to make post-lumpectomy radiation totally optional for women over 70 with early stage, node-negative small tumors with clean margins--leaning toward recommending forgoing it. Chemo after 65 is a matter of balancing the benefits of killing aggressive tumor cells against the risks--especially with comorbidities. A lot of the decision also depends on your life expectancy notwithstanding the cancer. Hate to say it but the ball’s in your court, and only you can decide what and how to play.