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I don't mean to upset anyone by my opinion, but I would have appreciated having access myself at the time of diagnosis in 2002 to the kind of information you are seeking.
Although things have improved in the last few years in terms of access to predictions, Merry, no one seems to want to spell out the answers in terms of what the stats are for our situations at 2 years or 5 years, only for 10 years. Maybe that is a good thing in some instances but for early stage bc it is known that around 60% will never have recurrence if the only treatment they have is surgery and I think the 2 year and 5 year numbers should be openly available to us.
When I asked one onc about getting Herceptin as a Stage 1 HER2 positive who had already done chemo, rads and hormonal treatment I was told "you've made it past 2 years and there is a real drop-off at 2 years, so no Herceptin for you..." but couldn't get any numbers from the onc for the basis for that statement. Not only that, but the onc used an Adjuvant projection for me based on a patient who was 10 years older than I was at diagnosis, which does make a definite difference. I've only had 3 opinions all told by oncs since diagnosis so I guess one has to pay for more than that to get a genuine straightforward opinion?
I'm sorry there just doesn't seem to be a good place for early stage breast cancer patients to be treated with enough respect to be given access to either the numbers short-term or to even-handed participation in clinical trials for drugs like Herceptin.
I hope very sincerely that you find yourself in the safe 60%, or at the very least, you will come back from time to time and share your story with us.
AlaskaAngel
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