*beachydreams*

ebb7

I responded to you in my original post, but then didn't want it to be buried...

They took 2 lymph nodes during surgery. At examination in the OR, the surgeon found nothing. When pathology examined them at the same time as the tumor, they found micrometastesis (sp?) in the first one and the second one was clean. The amount of cancer measured .25mm and the cutoff for which they do nothing is .20.

I know that no doctor out there is going to tell me NOT to do the surgery because from a medical perspective, they can then feel confident that they tried everything. However, from a perspective that there is an actual human involved, the risk of lymphedema, nerve damage, etc. has to weigh heavily into a decision like that!

Beachydreams

That is great you have opted for chemo if micrometasteses was found in 1 LN.  I agree, lymphedema is so common & can be so horrible. 

 How big was the initial tumor?  What about your ER/PR status, was it positive? ie. are you a candidate for hormone therapy after chemo?  Have you & your doc decided what chemo you are going to do? (again sorry if you have mentioned all this stuff before, I am not on that much & only knew about when you had your initial surgery)

 

ebb7

I meet with the oncologist on Thursday, so the chemo regime hasn't been determined yet. The tumor was mainly DCIS with only a few sporadic invasive cancer cells. I believe 5 were detected, with the largest being 8mm. I met with the genetic counselor today and she mentioned I AM a candidate for hormone therapy. I'm also doing BRCA since it is assumed that I am BRCAII positive.