How did I get here?
Hi everyone, what do I say…I am in shock! I felt it was time I reached out to the community as I’ve been reading all your posts the past few weeks and now I really need support and reassurance. I am...
Forum Discussion
No it doesn't mean you have metastatic cancer. That can't be determined until cat scans and bones scans happen.
It is very very normal to find different things in suregry, and the pathology after wards than what is seen in biopsy and scans prior to surgery.
It is very normal to have a second ,even third surgery . They try to take the least tissue and leave healthy tissue if they can. But it can be hard to get good margins on all sides of weird shapes.
it is very normal to wait between surgeries and scans . They will sort it out, but it is hard to have to wait. But this will go on for months, its a marathon not a sprint, so try to mediate and do things to self calm, relax and heal. Everything revolves around medical apointments .
I just looked back at my old patholgy report after my mastectomy and it says
"Four of eleven axillary lymph nodes show metastatic carcinoma. Two large
nodes show extensive replacement with tumour emboli in capsular lymphatics.
No extranodal extension is seen."
That was 18 years ago, i was not metastatic, just Stage 3 ,grade 3b, since it was in my nodes. I am fine, had my chemo , radio , and herception etc .
yeah i used to think it was travelling all around me, i was diagnosed mid/late dec, but surgeon said ok to wait until after christmas for surgery .Then all the months of chemo later in jan to mop up any cancer cells. then radiation to zap any more left.
I think sometimes its best not to read those medical reports before you see the doctor. We have to trust them, or we drive oursleves crazy.Trust the process. they are the cancer experts, not us.
Thank you so much Kristen for your excellent advice. It has taken me a while to log back in as I did get bogged down reading all the doom and gloom online and thinking the worst - my husband told me to take myself off ‘online’ for a while until I had a clearer path forward and had moved past the highly anxious stage of testing and full diagnosis.
I had my further axillary surgery on 17/6 and a further 4 nodes out of 16 had macro metastases in them - so 5/17 positive. I started chemo on 14/7 and am now just over 8 weeks into a 20 week treatment plan which will be followed by radiation and hormone blockers.
Thank you so much for sharing your positive story Kristen, it is so reassuring to hear that you are 18 years since diagnosis with Stage 3 (like me) and are doing fine!
Thank you again and best wishes x
