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Bill · 01-18-2008, 08:05 PM

Hi Lin. Hucklebuck has given you good advice. You and your friend have to seek as many opinions from different docs. as you can. She is really fortunate to have you as a friend. You must remember to take care of yourself. If you don't eat well or rest well, you won't be at your best to help her. My wife and I were faced with a similar situation in 2004, so I can relate to your predicament. Recounting from memory, some of the dates and circumstances may be a little off. 2004, routine mammogram found microcalcifications. Steriotactic removal of micros. Stage 0 at this point, "caught it early". Oncs. recommended rads. to the site. After several treatments, the rad. onc. said she was concerned about the margins and recommended a mastectomy instead. The surgical onc. said the margins were clean, and went in and did a second breast biopsy and the margins came back clean again. We were relieved and continued with the rad. treatment, no mast. 18 months later, my wife had a gallbladder attack, and when they went in to remove it, they discovered breast cancer mets in her liver. She never showed any sign of cancer in her breast, we still don't know what happenned. A stray cell slipping into the bloodstream? The biopsy moving a cell into the bloodstream? who knows. We wondered if we should have taken the rad. oncs. advice and had the mastectomy, but who knows? I know you're faced with difficult decisions, and I don't want to frighten you, just wanted to tell our story. With cat scans and other tests, our onc. explained it this way, "Picture an inch of tissue being sliced into a hundred different pictures, the cells we're trying to look at are so small, some may be in between, in the margins. As technology progresses, the testing will be more accurate, but right now, that's the best we have." It's unlikely you and Annette are in the same situation as we were, just wanted to stress the importance of carefully weighing all of the pros and cons and getting many different opinions. Praying for strength and guidance for you both, Bill

01-18-2008, 08:05 PM	#3
Bill Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 2,077	Hi Lin. Hucklebuck has given you good advice. You and your friend have to seek as many opinions from different docs. as you can. She is really fortunate to have you as a friend. You must remember to take care of yourself. If you don't eat well or rest well, you won't be at your best to help her. My wife and I were faced with a similar situation in 2004, so I can relate to your predicament. Recounting from memory, some of the dates and circumstances may be a little off. 2004, routine mammogram found microcalcifications. Steriotactic removal of micros. Stage 0 at this point, "caught it early". Oncs. recommended rads. to the site. After several treatments, the rad. onc. said she was concerned about the margins and recommended a mastectomy instead. The surgical onc. said the margins were clean, and went in and did a second breast biopsy and the margins came back clean again. We were relieved and continued with the rad. treatment, no mast. 18 months later, my wife had a gallbladder attack, and when they went in to remove it, they discovered breast cancer mets in her liver. She never showed any sign of cancer in her breast, we still don't know what happenned. A stray cell slipping into the bloodstream? The biopsy moving a cell into the bloodstream? who knows. We wondered if we should have taken the rad. oncs. advice and had the mastectomy, but who knows? I know you're faced with difficult decisions, and I don't want to frighten you, just wanted to tell our story. With cat scans and other tests, our onc. explained it this way, "Picture an inch of tissue being sliced into a hundred different pictures, the cells we're trying to look at are so small, some may be in between, in the margins. As technology progresses, the testing will be more accurate, but right now, that's the best we have." It's unlikely you and Annette are in the same situation as we were, just wanted to stress the importance of carefully weighing all of the pros and cons and getting many different opinions. Praying for strength and guidance for you both, Bill