TRIPLE POSITIVE GROUP

1982M-Thanks. The Young Patients board doesn't look very active?

morrigan_2575: I had a lumpectomy already and as the MRI results have come in, we've learned that this was indeed the only site of cancer and got clean margins. SNLB is next week, then chemo.

LGR239: Thanks for that description and your thought process is very similar to what I'm sifting through! I'll be 34 next week so it sounds like we're in the same range. My oncologist also will be using Lupron shots. The fertility specialist thought the best course of action would be to freeze eggs as an insurance policy because I will be over 35 by the time I can come off tamoxifen and I don't have a partner or firm plans of anything so I could wind up being considerably older by the time I decide to have children, if I decide to at all. She certainly didn't say it wouldn't be possible naturally, and I guess the bloodwork and initial scan I'll be doing tomorrow will give more information about my overall fertility in general. It is very expensive and you're right about the percentages. I guess I'll see what they say tomorrow.

Sorry Gamzu it’s not to active. I saw there’s a fertility board too but maybe there just as inactive? Hopefully it goes smoothly for you. Never an easy decision.

I started Anastrazole the week I finished my last Herceptin.

So happy you got a date finally! I felt really overwhelmed too just before chemotherapy, but two weeks into the weekly taxol it’s a bit of a routine. Side effects haven’t been pleasant but so far manageable. I feel like the wait to get going really is the absolute worst.

Your clip being pushed out was what happened to a stitch on me. My lumpectomy kept oozing this jelly and finally a gross stitch made an appearance. I now have a wide part of my scar, which matters none since they are going back in anyways.

Here’s hoping SNLB results get here quick and they are unaventful!

Hang in there, Gamzu, and big virtual hugs to you. That upcoming first chemo - aside from the unknown, waiting for biopsy results, and then known, OMG I have cancer phases - was the absolute scariest for me. I lost it in the waiting room just telling the receptionist I was there for infusion, but I do my 6th taxol/herceptin tomorrow. So far, it's not as bad as I expected. The lack of appetite and my own strange reluctance to drink water are the things that are hitting me the hardest and making it bad, I think. I'm 5'6" and under 120 lbs now, and it's leaving me feeling weak and shriveled, but my understanding is that most people gain rather than lose weight with this protocol, so this is probably just a weird me-thing. If not: eat like a pig on the days where the premeds are still in your system, and remind yourself to drink water. I have to set an alarm at this point. Icing my hands - my fingers got frostbitten a lot as a kid, and icing hands is physically painful and therefore hard for me, but it's worth it. Starting and stopping chemo due to reactions is the other hard thing. Once that taxol starts going in, I just want it to finish. My advice there: let them give you whatever premeds you need. It keeps them from having to stop, call docs, check vitals, restart, and delay the whole thing. I tried to go light on the premeds for a while, and it just prolonged the agony. I'm going to just accept the benadryl tomorrow, much as I dislike how groggy it makes me feel. My head hair is starting to shed more thickly than previously, but again, I'm half way through as of tomorrow. This was to be expected. The neuropathy so far is not too bad, and my nails are still growing and still fully attached to my fingers and toes.

I'm hoping for taxol for you, not the heavier duty TCHP, but whichever it is, we will be here for you, and we will all get through it together.

AMG2 and 1982M,

I started to hate drinking water a week after my first chemo. I ended up drinking a lot of soup and other liquids instead. I definitely lost weight on Taxol as it made things taste funny. Then, I started my AI (Aromasin) + ovulation suppression (Zoladex), and the weight came back and more some. If it's not one thing, it's another!

gamzu710 - eat as much protein as you can. Try lemonade or flavored seltzer water if regular water isn't your thing. It's important to stay hydrated.

Thanks, guys! I managed to stab myself 4 times with a needle before dinner this evening for my ovarian stimulation treatments so I can summon wells of willpower from somewhere, I'm just going to have to try harder with food. We do what we have to, don't we? Somehow.

Covid PCR just came back negative so I guess all systems go for SNLB. Going tomorrow afternoon to be injected with dye, imagining it will be quite painful, but we do what we have to do and get through it somehow.

I think for many who gain weight it doesn't come from actually overeating, it is fluid. You have to eat about 3,500 calories and not burn it off to gain a pound. I know I definitely did not do that, yet I gained weight and felt puffy - it was steroid induced fluid over the months of TCH. If you are underweight, or at a point where it could be dangerous to lose weight, it may be worth consulting a nutritionist if you start to lose. I have read here not to try to eat your favorite foods while on chemo because they might not be your favorite foods afterward - I did not have a strong food association with chemo - I just ate what I could immediately after infusions - soups and yogurt/melon and relatively bland foods that didn't upset my stomach in the first 10 days, then tried to eat protein in the second 10 days even though it tasted a bit like cardboard. I just felt like it was a temporary situation I had to get through the best I could. I did need a diuretic to lose the fluid - my MO put me on a mild one that did not have a kidney impact - and I stayed on it for a little under a year, then was able to stop.

gamzu - did anyone give you any EMLA numbing cream to put on prior to the SNB? I did not have any but the discomfort from the injections was brief - hope the same for you.

gamzu - that was my experience as well - my injections (bi-lateral) were done in pre-op the day of my BMX. Glad to hear that the doc looked at your wound and if feeling good about it. I hesitate to say it - but I will, happy early birthday! Good luck tomorrow - in your pocket for an uneventful birthday! I feel ya - I was diagnosed on 9/27, and hit with a barrage of Pinktober crap while in the expanded diagnostic phase of imaging and genetic testing, with surgery ultimately on Nov. 1 - mixed in there was my birthday also (it is this coming Sat.) so I had a few of those same experiences.

Gamzu, glad your home and done with surgery! One thing about the sentinel node biopsy I didn’t expect is at one point the area around felt like someone rubbed it with a Brillo pad or it had razor rash. It’s normal and just part of nerve healing. It was better after 4-6 weeks (can’t remember when it all went away… I think closer to 4 weeks).

It’s totally fair to be afraid/nervous and anxious about results. Waiting for my node status was hard. Hope you get results soon!

Pathology report is in--one sentinel lymph node removed, negative for tumor. Taxol + Herceptin it is. Though in looking at my oncology patient portal, I think it's going to be Kanjinti instead of Herceptin.

Glad to hear negative nodes Gamzu

Thanks, all. I feel like I just fill up this thread with questions. I have an echocardiogram tomorrow in preparation for Herceptin. No one has told me anything about it. From what I am reading, it sounds like no big deal? You just lay there and they ultrasound your heart? Do they inject any contrast? How long does it take?

My Zoom chemo class with the nurse is tomorrow afternoon. I need to sit tonight and write a list of questions.

Hi Gamzu, ask away, it is the main reason I am in these threads - to ask questions I still have, and to give support to people going through what I've already been through as best I can, because this whole process scared me horribly and was very hard to step into without the support of these threads.

The echo is no big deal: no contrast, just lie there, move around when asked to, and get a baseline of your cardiac ejection fraction, as this is the thing herceptin, or the monoclonals against her2 have the potential to adversely affect - temporarily is my understanding. I can't remember exactly how long it took, but it was a limited, not a full echo, and I don't think it was more than 30 min. I've got my 3 month, check and see what happened echo on Nov 10. I'm really glad your node was negative; that is great news!