IS MY CHEMO WORKING

Dear @heathfield, what a tough road bc is! And you’re nearly through the Taxol. It’s so worrying when they tell you they can’t tell. Oncologist was certain my lump was softening during chemo. Surgeon advised me - like @Mazbeth says above, that what the scan might be picking up is the scarred remains of where the tumour was. This was the case for me. After 4x AC then 9 x taxol, lumpectomy pathology in Jan21 found 2 tiny foci- .1 and .5mm, the rest was scar tissue, clear margins, all three sentinel nodes were cancer free as well.
The chemo kills the cancer everywhere it may be lurking. Not just in the breast with the tumour.

Totally empathize with you. The waiting and not knowing - especially whilst submitting to chemical warfare -can eat you up. Big 🤗 xx

Thank you Caz1 for your comments and your encouragement. I have 4 more weeks of taxol then a rest before surgery so I just have to keep faith with my treatment plan and hope to come out the other side like you all keep telling me about.  I don’t think they will do an MRI at this stage as I did have a PET Scan at diagnosis  🤗

Hi @heathfield and welcome!
My diagnosis and treatment was almost identical to yours, I was diagnosed in July 2019. So much good advice from the girls here.  
If you are really worried, maybe asking for an MRI is the go.  Is your doctor worried? Maybe be guided by him/her, that is if you trust him.
It IS hard to keep going to chemo, every primal cell in my body was telling me to run away, but my good angels were telling me to throw the book at that cancer bastard.  Just break it down into one day at a time or one hour if by the day is too hard...

My chemo killed most of my cancer cells in my boob and all in my lymph nodes.  So as an insurance I had a course of oral chemo for six months after my mastectomy as an insurance , despite having everything chopped out. It’s nowhere as tough as I.V.chemo. 
I finished that a couple of months ago and it’s funny but I can barely remember having the first chemo at all even though it was such a roller coaster at the time.

hang in there lovely 
Caz xx

This is such a great place to come to - you are never alone and the wealth of knowledge is amazing and it is so good you have reached out. I hope we have been able to help in some way. I always got anxious at each juncture of my treatment, I think it was about not knowing what it was going to be like and being put into unknown territory again. Let us know if we can help with anything else. Look after yourself, one day at a time. X

Oh thanks so much Mazbeth you almost made me cry.  Good tears.  I’m glad I reached out finally to you girls.   I guess it gets scary as we come to the end of this chemo journey and then to try to get our heads around the next stage of treatment.  One day and one foot at a time.  Thanks girls 💕

Hi @heathfield hang in there. As I said to @Kabee, whilst it makes sense to get going with the chemo straight away, I don’t know that anyone has really considered how psychologically hard that is for all of us who are anxiously waiting for our pathology results which give us all of those answers we so desperately want. Now, I am definitely no expert, but I have been through a very similar treatment schedule.
I did 4 x AC then 12 x taxol then I had 5 weeks break followed by a BMX. I was diagnosed December 2019, finished chemo May 2020, surgery June 2020 and completed recon December 2020. I knew from the start that for my own peace of mind, I wanted the BMX - so left breast had the ILC and the right breast was ok. My surgeon was excellent and totally supported my decision. 
The chemo will be doing something, don’t worry about that! Now, everyone responds differently so please don’t worry yourself unnecessarily. I gather that after chemo and when they do the surgery, they are able to see what they call the ‘tumour bed’ and that can have a mix of cells in it. If there are any active cells, well, those suckers are getting cut out, so they will be gone anyway! The upside of having the surgery after chemo is that they can see how the tumour responded - like a report card and they can make some more decisions about your treatment plan. The chemo will be doing its job. I know it is not easy waiting, but just focus on one day at a time - that’s how I got through it. The chemo will be mopping up and my oncologist said it is like taking out an extra insurance policy.
You are also coming to the end of what I imagine felt like a perilous mountain crossing and here you are about to take the next step forward. Take care Mx

😁😃🥰 I was the same as you. Stalked for months but never posted. Once I did, I also felt like I was a part of the group, but for the friendliness part, cos none of us wanna be here for the cancer part obviously 😆😘

All your comments are sensible and encouraging thanks for your support.  This is the first time I have posted anything since my diagnosis but have been reading all your stories.  So I now feel part of the group 🤗

Thanks 🤗

My breast care nurse told me that neoadjuvant chemo will hopefully shrink or kill the tumour itself, but that the important job is to kill any stray cells which might have gone walkabout elsewhere in the body. She told me that the cancer in my breast would not kill me, but that any cells from it going elsewhere, might well be a different story. Even if the main tumors or tumours don't show much shrinkage, I'm sure the chemo would still have helped greatly. The other advantage of chemo first, is that when the time comes for surgery, they know just where things are.