Hello Paula,
I'm so sorry you have to go through all that again. You asked great questions. I attended a medical cancer conference about a year ago as someone who works in the health care arena. Breast cancer was dicussed during one with a special focus on Her2+. I can send you the information later as I am home now. The research basically said this: women who are already geneitcally Her2+ will be more likely to develop breast cancer than the Er/Pr + patients. Say, for example, out of 100 women who are ER/PR+ maybe 30-40% of these women will develop breast cancer. Out of 100 Her2+ women, 60-65% percent of these women will develop breast cancer. I will have to check back later to get the hard data for everyone. I then asked what can we do about prevention with let's say starting at the age of 18 for all women, would there be some genetic intervention for the Her2 women patients? The discussion then led to do all women starting at the age of 18 get testing to determine their hormone status and with armed with that data if disocvering one is Her2+ how would that help, since at this point in time we don't know how to circumvent the cancer cells? That being said, can you eat right, never ever drink alcohol, exercise, be lean into adulthood, etc....and still get breast cancer if you are Her2+ specifically? The data may suggest that. This is a WTF situation. And yet, some answers in that genetic markers are going to be huge in the future, even more so. Hope this helps. Enjoy a healthy salad tonight while eating some chocolate.
Take care,
Jackie