Size comparison pre chemo vs post surgery

Great news. 

Thank you @FLClover & @Locksley. Surgery seems to have gone well. Surgeon is confident she got everything out so that’s great and I still have radiation to go as a back up anyway. 

Wishing you all the best for your  surgery tomorrow @kabee 

Good luck with your surgery tomorrow @Kabee 🍀. I hope the tumour has shrunk and you recover well ♥️

@AllyJay, I’m also hormone positive but Her2 neg. I’ve started the injections to put me into early menopause and will start tabs soon too. So glad to hear you are NED 

@lrb_03, thank you for your best wishes

@Mazbeth, I’m definitely looking forward to getting this sucker out 

thank you ladies for your feedback and kind words 😊

Hi @Kabee I did chemo first followed by a BMX - my decision to do both breasts and I can understand how you are feeling. I was like you and had read of other people’s experiences and was really worried about the post surgery pathology. My breast care nurse was excellent and reassured me that the chemo was adding another level of protection - an extra layer to an insurance policy and the surgery was going to now cut the sucker out. I had ILC - considered sneaky and difficult to screen - but my biopsy and the MRI were accurate as the pathology confirmed the size was as expected. There were no surprises and my tumour responded to chemo. Having chemo first has the benefit of ‘getting the report card’ on the effect of chemo, but I think the negative is that we have a long wait before we get all of the detailed pathology. It’s totally normal to feel anxious, but you have thrown a lot at it and now you are doing the last bit and getting what is left of the sucker out. This is another big step forward. My surgeons also warned me that the pathology can take a few days and not to panic as they really do an extensive analysis of all the tissue they remove. You are in good hands. Take care.

Your path sounds similar to mine, though I had a different chemo cocktail.
Like everything cancer related, and life in general, we're all different in how we respond

If you've have scans through chemo showing the tumour has shrunk, they're likely correct. Generally speaking, someone who's tumour is bigger than scans suggest hasn't had chemo first, and if they have, it's entirely possible that scans through chemo have shown progression and they're changing plans

It's not at all unusual to find the tumour is a different size to what the scans show

Best wishes for tomorrow, take care while you wait for results

I was diagnosed with grade 3..Stage 3...triple positive...multifocal (more than one lump) and node involvement on the left side. So called "abnormal geography" on the right. Due to a preexisting medical condition, I was unable to have radiation, so all I had in my bag of tricks was chemo, surgery then hormone blockers for at least ten years. I had chemo first, AC X 4 followed by Paclitaxel X 12 and Herceptin for just under a year. Chemo (but not the herceptin) finished in April 2017. Surgery which was bilateral mastectomy plus full axillary clearance on the left and sentinel node on the right. Pathology showed a 100% pathological response, with no live cancer cells found in either the breasts or nodes, only the (quote) "empty tumour beds". Some people have no response, in which case the tumour would probably have grown in the interim, some have a limited response, where perhaps it may have stayed the same but not grown,others have a partial response with some small areas of cancer still left and others are more fortunate, as I was. This does not guarantee that some cancer cells might be lurking elsewhere, as yet undetected, or in a dormant state, and may yet return. For me, I'm still NED...No Evidence of Disease.