[Gerri]

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful replies. Darlene and Marie you have given me a lot of information to pass on to my friend. Barbara, I have already passed on your message; I knew she would need to hear something like that right now. Bill, I appreciate your thoughts as well. I am going to pass all of your words of hope and wisdom on to her.

Marie, I believe she is about 53 years old, give or take a year or two. At the beginning of her journey, her onc told her she was either a stage 1 or 2. Her tumor was estimated to be at least 4cm. From what I understand, that would make her at least a stage 2A, and the fact that her onc had said she had swollen nodes prior to chemo makes me wonder if she had any node involvement. That is the part that has always confused me. If she had possible node involvement, but after chemo the first three nodes were hardened, is there any way to tell if there was node involvement? How is staging done with neo-adjuvant chemo?

I'm glad that she followed my advice and called for an appointment with her onc, at least that got her a referral for a PET scan. I agree that she should seek more than one opinion, but I don't know if she will feel comfortable doing so. Plus, with an HMO, your options are limited to the doctors within your group. (I love my PPO!!!) I will check with her to see how she is doing on the Decadron. I remember the days/nights when I was bouncing off the walls - not fun.

Thanks again everyone, I really do appreciate all of your advice and encouragement. When I wrote asking for the experts to weigh in, I did so knowing that your expertise comes from personal experience, something none of us want. It makes me so sad that so many of you are fighting so hard for your life - or in Marie's case, for the life of the love of your life.

I will keep you posted. My love to you all.