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This was perhaps NOT the thread for me to read today because I just had my first round of chemo (TCH). Today is the proverbial 3rd day when everyone seems to feel like crap.
I agonized about doing chemo or not. I was offended (to put it mildly) that I was told that after a mastectomy I would run a 1-2% chance of recurrence if node negative. I had the mastectomy because the DCIS was so "extensive." I was relieved that I was node negative (1 sentinel node -) and when I returned to my doctor for the pathology report I received a different story:
extensive DCIS, 1.2 cm mass, ER +, PR-, HER2 +++ with a high (20%-30%) chance of recurrence.
When I asked my oncologist why I was told that mastectomy would leave only a 1-2% chance of recurrence AND asked that he please reconcile the very divergent recurrence percentages, he said, "I don't know where you got that number from."
Perhaps no one can tell us with any accuracy what the future holds but I hate that I could never seem to get any reliable information upon which to make my decision. In the end, at the age of 37, I made my decision out of fear and the hope that I could look into a future without cancer. In my gut, I don't want to be doing this. (By the way, the "gut" doesn't ever seem to tell me that what I'm doing is right or wrong; it just says, "I don't want to!")
Sorry for whining,
C.
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