Scared....one more node found positive after chemo

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Oh, stephilosphy00...a LOT of us have been in similar circumstances to where you are right now.

In October 2011, everyone thought my "lump" was the size of a tic-tac, no big deal, pop it out and all will be OK. Then the lumpectomy and sentinel node biopsy showed cancer in the sentinel node (a boatload of it--the lymph node was so chock-full of cancer that it couldn't absorb any of the tracer OR blue dye). Then the pathology report showed six positive nodes. Then the skin biopsy revealed tumor in the skin, so a mastectomy was needed. My hopes just kept getting crushed over and over again. It was a difficult time.

But like many, many others here, I took my medicine, endured the rodeo, and I'm still kicking. Don't let stage numbers define you. Your team will guide you through this with all the current treatments available and you'll keep putting one foot in front of the other, every day. One day at a time.

No one knows what the future holds, but your new news doesn't portend doom, not by a long shot. Gentle hugs.

steph-I am going to echo Yatcomw and selizabeth here--I had nothing show up on annual mammograms although it could be easily felt. 'No bigger than a dime" they told me from the ultrasound results. "Early stage, no nodes probably." Turned out to be around 8 cm, nobody knows for sure because it took three surgeries to get it all. Then I had a sentinel node with a 2 cm tumor wrapped around it-- then I had four other positive nodes. Then whoops--your Ki 67 is astronomically high--75%. Ok, now we think you are her2 positive--no wait a minute, maybe not.

I well remember those times you are now going through. Be hopeful, and remember--I would gladly trade you my stats for yours!

Gentle hugs, Weesa

Yeah, I had a huge cluster of positive lymph nodes (2 huge ones for sure) before chemo. After chemo and surgery, it turned out that there were 9 positive ones still. It's just hard to tell because they're so small ahead of time. I agree with the other poster, your stats look great!

Stage III is definitely no death sentence and I echo the good advice you are receiving here.

Good luck with your surgery.

Ask your doctor if it means the same as extra-capsular extension, which essentially means that the cancer has burst out of the lymph nodes and started growing in the immediate vicinity. I had this and what they called a "mat" of cancer that had escaped the lymph nodes, and had pretty much glued them all together into an inseparable combination of cancer and lymph node.

I thought for sure this meant that I probably already had MBC, but I did not. They removed all of the lymph nodes of course, and after chemo and surgery they radiated the area as high as they could possibly get without damaging the brachial nerve. I had some pain in that area for several years, which always made me think it was growing there again, but it has since faded away.

It's not at all unusual for the news to start off as though this breast cancer is just a minor thing that you take care of and it goes away, then you find out more...and more, and things start to sound dicey. But hang in there, long-term you have a very good chance at survival.

Hi ladies, so glad to have found this thread. I completed 4 rounds of AC and just had a mastectomy. I thought I was having an awesome response to AC because my huge lump of DCIS/masses shrunk down to the point where I could no longer feel it. But, I just got my path report back and cancer was in 4 of the 8 nodes (they originally thought just 1) with extranodal extansion in one even after 4 rounds of chemo. This moves me to stage III and I'm so disappointed to know that it was originally so much larger than we thought.

I appreciate those of you who have commented, especially long-term survivors. I know I have more chemo (Taxol) and radiation ahead of me, but it's just so disheartening to find out that I've been fighting a bigger beast than I originally thought all along.