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Lynne,
As you may know, there are hundreds of different breast cancers so it is difficult to decide about treatment based on the experience of others who may not have cancer that happens to be like yours, even others who seem similar.
It has taken lots of clinical trials and review and discussion among specialists to come up with recommendations for treatments, but as confusing or surprising as it can sound to be diagnosed as "having invasive cancer" and yet at the same time be recommended not to have intensive treatment, that recommendation is based on the same evidence and evaluation used to recommend others to do treatment.
While it is true that doing intensive treatment is "do-able", there is also a downside.
Use of some drugs causes damage to the heart, and for some the damage has proven to be significant, even for people who showed no indication prior to doing treatment that their heart was likely to be damaged. It is also true that researchers are still evaluating how much damage can occur that does not show up until long after treatment.
Use of some drugs can cause leukemias many years later as well.
One of the more widespread results that doctors overwhelmingly fail to discuss in adeqeuate detail with patients is the loss of libido after treatment, including sexual desire. They also do not discuss the often severe vaginal dryness that occurs after treatment. While there are lubricants available to help with this, what information medical personnel provide seriously underestimates the degree of this problem and also overestimates the ability for simple-sounding solutions like lubricants and alternative sexual approaches to adequately solve it. Those who are less menopausal upon completion of treatment tend to have less difficulty with it, but that varies even among that group.
Use of some drugs can cause neuropathic damage, and this also has been underestimated. Often instead it is mentioned briefly as thought it is common, not very severe, and just "one of the risks". For some it may go away but for others it does not.
Individually we can "have faith" and "think positive" as a way of accepting tough treatment in the hope that somehow we are special and that none of these things will happen to us, or that any effects will be limited for our own situation. Realistically doctors are seeing patients for whom this is not the case and they are trying to spare as many as possible from having to live with these problems by identifying those who are highly unlikely to recur, and then recommending that they not do toxic treatment.
They also have some idea just how many do not respond to toxic treatment even when it is given. Anyone considering treatment needs to understand that someone among us has cancer that does not respond to chemotherapy, and each of us may go through the ugliness of treatment and still recur, as well as have to live with some of the problems noted above.
Deciding what to do or not to do is hard. I wish you the best.
-AlaskaAngel
Dx 2001
No evidence of disease
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