Can't feel tumor but lymph nodes are so large..

[Tricia]

OK this is driving me crazy!!! Stage 3b have one more round of TCH to go and I can't feel the cancer that was 7cm in my right breast (praise God) however my right lymph nodes are so large and palpable and still very tender. Why or how would these heavy doses of TCH take a very large tumor in the breast undetectable (by me, by touch anyway) and yet no changes to my lymph nodes??? When I had my original surgery to do a lumpectomy on Jan 4 2007 they went in sure it was NOT breast cancer...you know all that too young crap, breast cancer doesn't hurt, no family history etc.... must be an old milk duct infection or something.... when they got in there cancer was everywhere(their words not mine) wrapped around my ribs, attached to the chest wall in the lymph nodes etc.... Dr closed me up and said that I needed intensive Pre-op chemo to try to shrink as much as they could before going back in..... he never surgically went into the lymph node area and said that now that he had been in there a sentinal node biopsy couldnt be done...but he was 100% sure that my nodes were affected because they were very large etc. Because they havent shrunk in size does that mean that the TCH is not helping there?? My onc already told me they all have to come out anyway...but I just want this cancer stopped and I feel if its in my nodes then its just traveling all over my body.