Dear Saskia,
The normal reason as I understand it is for Stage IV
patients the
medical community believe there is no way to get rid of the
cancer, i.e.
it's a matter of buying more time with all the treatment,
getting the
patient to NED and then waiting till a reoccurrence occurs
to start the
fight over again, this is due to the cancer spreading to
other areas of
the body.
However with Stage III the cancer is limited to the breast
and lymph
nodes and therefore the possibility of getting rid of the
cancer
permanently is a possibility in the medical communities
view.
As with others this means that if you are Stage IV you are
treated
differently and for me why not aim for the stars i.e. when I
began
treatment the prognosis was very poor, I had an amazing
reaction to the
chemo and so maybe just maybe there is a chance of beating
this. None of
the doctors could have predicted my reaction and none of my
doctors
expected the results we have achieved.
There has also been discussions on this list that there may
be several
types of IBC some more aggressive than others, there are
some stage IV
patients who have been NED for a long time (the IBC
conference online
experts said a reoccurrence normally occurred in the first
two years)
and if you were NED for five years then there was virtually
no chance of
IBC returning and visa versa some Stage III patients who
didn't respond
well to treatment - how does the doctor know which group you
will be in?
With IBC treatment, no one knows the best treatment they are
still
working on it, there is little research done, so we each
have to find
out what works for us, for me that's treat aggressively and
try to give
my body every chance to beat IBC.
Fiona
Single mother (43 yrs old) with two daughters 2 year old and
six years
old was living in Bangkok with my own consulting business
when diagnosed
Jan 06 after six months of being told I had mastitis &
blocked milk
ducts (five hospitals, nine doctors two surgeons all got it
wrong
including a breast cancer centre), immediately moved back to
Sydney,
Australia - Stage IV - Mets to Bone T9 & L4, lymph
glands left and right
arm, gland behind breast bone, ER-/PR-/HER2+++ started Chemo
14th Feb 06
- FEC x 1 /Herceptin x 1 then switched to weekly Taxotere
70mg/Herceptin
200mg six weeks on, two weeks herceptin only. Scans done
6/06 great
results, some of my team believe its arthritis at L4 not
cancer and
significant improvement everywhere, double mastectomy done
20/7/06 with
axillary clearance both sides 22 glands from left, 13 from
right, lymph
glands totally clear (yippee), DCIS small pocket found in
left breast,
nothing in right breast, more of the same chemotherapy, Bone
Scan L4
uptake, MRI clear, PET scan clear, radiation twice per days
seven fields
completed 12/06, more chemo planned for the new year.
-----Original Message-----
From: ibc-bounces ibcsupport.org [mailto:ibc-bouncesibcsupport.org] On
Behalf Of saskia schoofs
Sent: Wednesday, 13 December 2006 1:32 PM
To: dly
Cc: ibcibcsupport.org
Subject: Re: [ibc] no surgery?
Hi Donna,
> Is the reason for not having surgery that the IBC was
not confined to
> a small enough area even after chemo?
yes, that was the only reason. And though I wasn't looking
forward to
surgery, I was really upset by the news it couldn't be done,
it sounded
like a second sentence to me.
but see, we're almost 7 years later now.
a little early, but merry christmas to all of you and a very
happy and
wonderful 2007!
Saskia in Belgium
dx 3/2000
currently on Lapatinib/Xeloda
--
** List address: ibcibcsupport.org
** Information - subscribe, unsubscribe, archives, etc.:
** http://www.ibcsupport
.org/list/
** Donations: http://www.i
bcsupport.org/donations.html
--
** List address: ibcibcsupport.org
** Information - subscribe, unsubscribe, archives, etc.:
** http://www.ibcsupport
.org/list/
** Donations: http://www.i
bcsupport.org/donations.html
|