Adding my ‘just diagnosed’

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twinmomx2
twinmomx2 Member Posts: 2
edited March 2021 in Just Diagnosed

Found out today I have triple negative invasive ductal carcinoma Grade 3, Stage 2. It's 2.1 cm at this time. Biopsy was last Monday .. I have side pain, but I know the psyche can play games as well! It's been a trip so far to say the least. As most of you, I'm nervous and just can't stop reading.. and majority is bad of course! The oncologists don't want to finalize plans until we find out BRCA results. They said they want to make sure due to my age. That is not scheduled until April 1. Seems like a long time to wait for me. I do have a MRI scheduled for Monday tho.

Since I know I will want to research.. and good book recommendations? Any words of advice?


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  • NorCalS
    NorCalS Member Posts: 288
    edited March 2021

    Hi Twinmomx2.

    I was diagnosed with TNBC grade 3 in June of 2019. It was a total shock and initially, things seemed to be moving too slow. Then I had a battery of tests, including brain MRI, full body CT, bone scan, breast MRI and echocardiogram of the heart. All these tests were performed in 3 days. They also wanted to biopsy lymph nodes near my clavicle and also take a PET scan, but I wanted to start chemo right away. When I started chemo, I was staged at 3c/4 (dispute between surgeon and oncologist). There wasn’t even enough time to implant my port. The port was put in after my first chemo infusion.

    You will probably have neoadjuvant chemo. Typically, Adriamycin-cytoxan and taxol (and possibly a platinum drug depending on the genetic test). Before I started chemo, I read up on how to minimize side effects. Many respond well to the anti-nausea drugs that are prescribed. There are so many ladies here that will give you great advice on how they dealt with their side effects. I also found the oncology nurses to be helpful.

    I used fasting before each infusion to help reduce the side effects. It worked for me and it reduced the amount of anti-nausea meds (I had a bad reaction to one of the anti nausea medications). I also changed my diet and walked daily. The oncologist and nurses really stressed daily walks, so I walked every day (always with my partner just in case). I also read the book The Metabolic Approach to Cancer. I felt that it helped aide in my treatment.

    Once you have a game plan set with your oncologist, it will feel less overwhelming

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  • Beesie
    Beesie Member Posts: 12,240
    edited March 2021

    twinmom, welcome! But so sorry that you've had to join us here.

    May I ask... how old are you?

    NorCal has provided a lot of good information. As she mentioned, it is likely that you will receive neoadjuvant chemo (i.e. chemo prior to surgery) because of being triple negative and having a tumor that is larger than 2cm. As for which imaging tests you'll have done, that differs based on what their oncologist thinks is best and is necessary. With an earlier stage cancer, as you appear to have, you may not receive the same tests that NorCal received - most of those tests are not recommended for early stage patients, although some MOs do order them.

    If you are interested, you might want to register at the NCCN site so that you can access the Physician's Version of the NCCN Treatment Guidelines. You can register here: https://www.nccn.org/professionals/physician_gls/d... and what you are looking for down the list of "NCCN GUIDELINES FOR TREATMENT OF CANCER BY SITE" is the Breast Cancer PDF. There is also a Breast Cancer Patient's Guide that you can access without registering.

    The NCCN guidelines are the gold standard guidelines used by most doctors in North America, so it will give you a good idea of what to expect, and if the recommendations are different, you can ask why (your MO might have good reasons). Here are a couple of pages that are relevant to your diagnosis: (Note that this is not the most recent version of the guidelines but they've made the latest version more difficult to navigate by putting more information, such as what I have boxed in red in the first chart, into the footnotes and onto different pages.)

    image


    image

    Hope that helps!


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  • LivinLife
    LivinLife Member Posts: 1,332
    edited March 2021

    Hi twinmomx2! Sorry you find yourself here! Just want to welcome you.... NorCal and Beesie provided great info for you!

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  • twinmomx2
    twinmomx2 Member Posts: 2
    edited March 2021

    thank you for all the helpful advice so far. This weekend was not good emotionally. I just seem to flip switches faster than my brain can process. From let’s fight to why me to it is what it is to extreme anger. I see many of you have done the Same. MRI today.. don’t know when I’ll get results

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