[penelope]

Deciding to have treatment is always a very tough decision. I want to let you know what I decided and why because I was diagnosed at 35 and was in the "grey area". I also had two small children at home and wanted to see them grow up.

I was diagnosed with 4.2 cm of DCIS and a 7mm tumor, with no vascular invasion and negative nodes. I went on to have bilateral mastectomies, 4 cycles of AC and a year of herceptin. At the time 2 years ago, they did not think I needed taxol, although now I wish I had thrown that at the god awful thing to!

It was a tough decision. I had to fight for the mastectomies, and at the time the herceptin as it was not yet approved for early stage under 1 cm. But I decided to do it because of the large area of dcis, believe it or not. Although rare there are women who have progressed to stage 4 from dcis only, as well as from very small tumors that are her2+. You see in just 1 mm of cancer there are millions of cells and I was relying on some one (pathologists) to look over 42 mm of dcis and make sure it had not escaped. That is like looking for a needle in a haystack literally. I was thankful that they had found the tiny invasive portion, but was not able to completely trust that they had found everything. How could I, with billions or cells to look at?

In addition if it ever came back, I wanted to be able to look at my family and know that I hit it with everything I could. That I had led the good fight and there for it truely was meant to be.

The decision process was scarey and an extremely lonely one, but you know what? I learned a whole lot. I learned...

I am a lot stronger than I ever thought I could be.
It was not as hard to loose my hair as I thought.
I learned that when push came to shove, I was a very valuable and important to my family and friends.
That my marriage was going to last a life time, regardless of how long that life might be.
That I really could have a models body (with a little plastic surgery!).
And as truley unbelievable as this sounds....cancer, as ugly as it is, made my life better. I am a happier person.

Therapy is easier than you think.

Hope this helps you in some small way. You are at the hardest part of the journey. Once you make a deicion it will get a little easier. Good luck to you.