[Nancy L]

You are a special guy to be your wife's advocate. Everything can be quite confusing when you are first diagnosed.

The first thing that needs to happen is the staging of your wife's disease. The treatment protocol varies by the severity of her disease. Since her sentinel node was positive, I believe she will be at least stage 2.

I am also ER-/PR-/HER2 positive. But it was over 6 years ago when I was first diagnosed. So what they used on me back then may not be what they will recommend for your wife. They know now that chemo works better on ER-/PR- than it does on ER+/PR+ which is a positive for your wife. But they still have no idea what feeds ER-/PR- tumors and have no drugs other than chemo to treat that aspect of our tumor. Fortunately, your wife is HER2 positive. Knowledge of HER2 breast cancer has advanced a lot in the past six year and there are many new drugs on the market and in clinical trial to target HER2.

One thing that I do recommend to anyone facing chemo is to have a port installed unless you have very good veins. I wish someone would have told me to do this. It makes receiving the chemo so much easier. Talk to your wife's doctor about it before she gets started and see what he/she thinks. It is a simple outpatient procedure to put it in and then take it out when treatment is completed.

Sending my best to your wife. She has joined a club she never wanted to be in. But let her know she will be OK. This is just a speed bump in life.