[Jackie07]

DianneS,

When a tumor is classified as Grade III, it is very aggresive - growing super fast (think about the cells growing exponentially from 1, 2, 4, 16, 256, 256x256....) Once the tumor grows to a certain size, some of the cells start to peel away and 'invade' the surrounding tissues, possibly enter the lymph system...

With mastectomy, you are pretty safe as far as the breasts are concerned, but only a systemic approach (chemo and Herceptin - miracle drug for Her-2 positive breast cancer) can give you protection against having cancer sprouting in other parts of your body.

My tumor was not cut completely, so I had 'local' recurrence. The cancer had spread to my underarm lymphnodes, so it was considered 'regional'. Thus I had local regional recurrence. Because it was a chunk of tumor left to grow, chemo was not able to kill all the cancer cells.

And because it was mistaken as scar tissue, my recurrence was not found until it was quite big and with two lymph nodes involvement.

I wished my surgeon would had taken the more aggressive apprach and let me have the double mastectomy the first time around. I think your doctor (and most doctors now) understands the aggressiveness of HER-2 +++ breast cancer. It is doable. Many of us on this board have had chemo + Herceptin. Just like my heart condition was caught before I even had symptoms, I am sure all the side effects you are worried about will be detected before there's any visible damage.

If your doctor thinks you are in good enough shape to have the treatment, I (personally) think you should heed their advice and give it a try.