Hello All…I hope it’s ok for me to post on here…my concerns are for my Mum. She was diagnosed with breast cancer at the end of October last year. We were told it was a very aggressive cancer and too inflamed to operate first so she started chemo FEC straight away.
At the time of diagnosis her breast had considerably swollen and was very red and hot to touch, her arm had also swollen which we have been told is due to a blood clot and she injects fragmin daily.
She has been told it is not receptive to Herceptin and that now after she has had 3 lots of FEC that her chemo will now be changed.
Everywhere I have looked for information people seem to know their type/grade etc of their cancer…all we have been told is that it hasn’t spread past thd breast and nearby lymph nodes and that it is very aggressive. Some of the Drs notes I saw said T4 breast cancer which with Mums symptoms has lead me to believe she has stage 3 IBC but I could be reading this all wrong!
I just Googled it and this came from breastcancer.org in relation to what T4 says:
T1, T2, T3, T4: These numbers are based on the size of the tumor and the extent to which it has grown into neighboring breast tissue. The higher the T number, the larger the tumor and/or the more it may have grown into the breast tissue.
There are also sub-divisions of that so if you know whether there was anything after the T4, that could tell you a bit more.
Dear Butterfly 318
Thank you so much for your reply, that makes a lot of sense and explains why they haven’t given us a full diagnosis yet, I hadnt thought that theyd have to have operated first but can see why now…thank you.
We have a Maggies nearby, we’ve only popped in quickly once (Mum donated a hamper over Christmas) but we plan to call in again soon as we’ve heard how good they are.
Mum was given the FEC-T information when we saw the nurse right back at the start. I had thought she said Mum wouldn’t have the T part but maybe after seeing how the FEC has worked they’ve changed their mind or she was misinformed or quite probably I’ve misheard/misremembered!
Thanks again, sending you best wishes too xx