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Re: support for foregoing radiation?
trish and jill:
trish: sounds like i can expect a good year till tummy returns to normal.
Jill: you said "My primary onc and my radiation onc said radiation was not an option for me". but in your signature it says "33 rounds of TomoTube radiation, to chest wall, neck, skin and lymph area". ???????? On what grounds did they initially claim radiation was not an option for you? What changed their minds?
We have very similar Stage 3b b.c. so I am delighted you posted here so I can compare. One thing that REALLY discombobulated me and continues to do so is the fact my stupid surgeon told me my cancer was "so far advanced" that he refused my request for a double mastectomy and reconstruction back on june seventh of this year. i was diagnosed may tenth 2011, a month before the surgery. I tried REALLY hard to convince him to take both boobs instead of the one. I was turned down flat using scare techniques on me: "oh you are so advanced that we have to get u into chemo asap and six weeks is enough time for healing for one boob but not for two. you would need months for two boobs to heal.... with two boobs removed in the one surgery infection can result, delaying the chemo...blah blah."
WHAT a load of hogwash. Most of the women on this site get their chemo started way inside that six week "de rigeur" period for healing. most women with the same three b cancer got their surgery sooner than mine, with both boobs off if they wanted, and chemo done simultaneously, finished sooner than mine.
I think he just did not want to stand up in the operating room for five hours instead of two hours. I am still furious about it. why do i have to go get an entirely separate surgery to remove my ridiculous existing boob and install expanders when he could have done it all that day in june? tons of women here have that situation. dammit.
It sounds from what you wrote that it is possible four months after this reconstructive operation, for me to have the saline drained and then do the radiation. that is what i want. i am just so mad that i didnt get what i want back in june and now i have to delay radiation to get what he could have done then.
i appreciate your point that it is best that i do radiation immediately, but i am just sick of this single boob flying around, and the hideousness of my ugly ugly scar on my mastectomy site (the one that wouldn't stay closed during chemo and kept getting fungus growing in it, DESPITE the bull I was fed that "my advanced cancer required only one boob off at a time so it will heal before chemo starts".
what do you think..three months from now the reconstruction, then four months later a saline drain from the right side and a month of radiation? will that be soon enough for the radiation to be effective?
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fall 2008: mammo of rt breast worrisome so am asked to redo mammo and have ultrasound of rt breast.I delay it til january 2009 and the results are "no cancer in rt breast. phew."
found plum sized lump in right breast the day before my dad died: April 17th 2011. saw it in mirror, while i was wearing a top, examining my figure after losing 10 lbs on dr. bernstein diet.
diagnosed may 10 2011
mast/lymphectomy: june 7 2011, 5/20 cancerous nodes. stage 3a before radiation oncologist during our first mtg on july 15th says he found cancer on the lymph node of my breast bone. Now stage 3b.
her2+++, EN-, PN-. Rt brst tumors:3 at onset, 4.5 cm was the big one
chemos: 3fec's followed by 3 taxotere, total of 18 wks chemo. sept: halfway thru chemo the mastectomy scar decides to open and ooze pus. (not healed before chemo) eventually with canasten powder sent by friend in ny (illegal in canada) it heals.
radiations:although scheduled to begin 25 january 2012, I am so terrified by it (rads cause other cancers) I don't start til february, miss a bunch, reschedule them all and finally finish 35 rads mid april. reason for 7 extra atop the 28 scheduled is that when i first met my rads oncologist he said he saw a tumor on the lymph node of my breastbone. extra 7 are special kind of beam used for that lymphnode. rads onc tells me nobody ever took so long to do rads so he cannot speak for effectiveness. trials had been done only on consecutive days so......we'll see.....
10 mos of herceptin started 6 wks into chemo. canadian onc says 10 mos is just as effective as the full yr recommended by dr. slamon......so we'll see..completed july 2012.
Sept 18 2012: reconstruction and 3 drains. fails. i wear antibiotic pouch on my job for two months and have 60 consecutive days visiting a nursing centre where they apply burn victims' silver paper and clean the oozing infection daily. silicone leaks out daily. plastic surgeon in caribbean. emergency dept wont remove "his" work. He finally appears and orders me in into an emergency removal of implant. I make him promise no drains and I get my way. No infection as a result. Chest looks like a map of Brazil. Had a perfectly good left breast on Sept 17th but surgeon wanted to "save another woman an operation" ? so he had crashed two operations together on my left breast, foregoing the intermediary operation where you install an expander. the first surgeon a year earlier had flat out refused to waste five hours on his feet taking both boobs. flat out refusal. between the canadian health system saving money and both these asses, I got screwed. who knows when i can next get enough time off work (i work for myself and have no substitute when my husband is on contract) to get boobs again. arrrgh.
I have a blog where I document this trip and vent.
www.nora'scancerblog.blogspot.com . I stopped the blog before radiation. I think the steroids made me more angry and depressed and i just hated reading it anymore
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