[Sandra in GA]

My two cents worth. When I was trying to decide to have radiation - I was hesitant because my left arm is my "work horse" because I had Polio at age 18 months that affected my right arm and have very limited use of that arm and hand and if I developed severe lympodema in my left I could not retrain my right to do my daily care duties - I prepared a list of questions and concerns I wanted the rediation onc to answer. (Of corse, my cancer was in my left breast and they removed all 21 nodes from under my left arm.) Included in that list were several that I wanted answered concerning survival and recurrance rates with Herceptin and Tykerb alone and with traditional therapy. I wanted empirical statistics!! Well, when the questions came out of my mouth, I realized that these have not been collected and documented yet! My radiation onc said, "You guys are writing that information now!"

So now the stats are old. Herceptin has only been available around 10 years and Tykerb was only approved by the FDA in '07.

Live everyday to the fullest! Dance when you want and love everybody!

Sandra

PS As you can see in my signature, I did go ahead with the radiation treatments. I am glad I did. And as someone has already posted, the stats don't mean anything unless you are one of the positive numbers no matter how high or low the percentages. I believe in doing all I can and then putting my life in God's hands.