Me too

Welcome Dennyse. My sincere sympathy. We are here for you, on that long ride right along with you. We are all Brothers and Sisters here. Take a look through the ILC section here on BCO, and read through some threads there, where you can learn a good deal about ILC. Now that you are diagnosed, your Treatment Team may want to start with your choice of surgical treatment. Surgery options will be recited and generally described to you. The relief of having your treatment underway will come sooner if you know already by then what surgery is right for your case. Learn what you can about ILC and surgery options before then, give yourself plenty of quiet time to reflect on your own needs, preferences, and concerns, and make the decision that is best for you. That decision, you must make for yourself, entirely self-guided from all your own circumstances and your own learning.

Happy Birthday! My birthday is also May 31, and I was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma two weeks before that. Great present huh? I have met with my surgeon at The City of Hope, who said I'd be a candidate for lumpectomy, but I have so much cancer and breast cancer in my family, she ordered extensive genetic testing. Also went last week for breast MRI, this week will have another ultrasound, possibly more biopsies, and meet with surgeon again. Genetic test results take up to 4 weeks however, so I'm really nervous about waiting that long. I hope your appointment on the 7th provided some good information. Keep us posted. We're all in the same boat!

Dara, I also have a lot of cancer in my family, including 3 pre-menopausal BCs (one was only 24!) I also had genetic testing. They did the 5-gene test, which covers the most common ones like BRCA 1&2. Then, we did another one, a 32-gene test, because I have 19 cases of different kinds of cancer in just my 1st & 2nd generation relatives (both sides involved). My first gene test came back negative within 2 weeks and I was so relieved. Had my lumpectomy and moved on. But then, the 32-gene panel came back and it turned out that I had 2 gene mutations which cause breast cancer, and a whole bunch of other cancers which are all represented in my family. Lucky me.

I wish I had waited on that second test because it would have totally changed the surgical plan. When I met with my oncologist, the first thing she asked me was "Why do you still have your breasts? They're going to try to kill you." Faced with an estimated 25+ years of close surveillance, I had to agree--the breasts had to go. If I had known about the gene mutations, I would have had the BMX before starting chemo. As it was, I had my lumpectomy, re-excision for clean margins, chemo, and THEN the BMX. I still need to get a total hysterectomy, too, thanks to the stupid gene mutations.