I am hoping someone may be able to shed some light on this for me.
I was dx and had mx in Feb 08. Had chemo but as my lymph nodes were clear was told that radiotherapy wasn’t required. I have had 18 cycles of Herceptin and am booked in for recon on Wednesday!
The end is in sight, or so I thought.
This weekend I received a letter from hospital saying that I had an appointment to see a different Oncologist in the Radiotherapy department on the 1st December… So Why??
I can understand your confusion! I think you need to be asking some questions, and if as you say you have a reconstruction booked for Wedneday, then they need to be asked quickly. Radiotherapy can affect certain types of recon so you need to be asking how it would affect your type of recon. Also I am wondering at what point you were told you would not need radiotherapy. Was it before your HER2 status was known? That is possible because HER2+++ is a more aggressive cancer so radiotherapy will often be used then. Do contact your BCN tomorrow morning and ask a few quick urgent questions. It may be that they all have it in hand and just forget sometimes that the patient doesnt know what the hell is going on!
Thanks for responding. I am on a clinical trial though and would have thought that as they know everything about all my treatments/meds/appointments then my CTrial nurse would have told me? Isn’t it normal to have radiotherapy before Herceptin? Sorry for all the questions and I shall be on the phone in the morning but I am now worried that something has been overlooked and they will cancel my recon. Heartbreaking after waiting so long for it to happen xx
My breast surgeon said to me on Tuesday that the research is showing that most BC patients would benefit from radiotherapy,even post mastectomy.He said soon all patients would likely get rads.I wonder if your dept are acting on this research?
It is a right spanner in the works when your long awaited recon is on Wednesday.
Hope you get an answer tomorrow.
Hugs
Dot
x
I thought I had researched every aspect of my treatment as it was happening and from my amateur understanding… If I have had a Mx and my lymph nodes were clear… what can they zap?! lol Excuse my phrasing there, thoughts on paper and all that xx
from what you say - and it didnt occur to me when typing the first post was yes - surely rads would come before herceptin?
On your later post - well… on my first mastectomy (without lymph node involvement)but even though I had had rads 5 yrs previous, the ca returned in the skin of the mastectomy site. Mine is er/pr neg, her2+++. I do hope whatever has gone on here does not mess up with weds. Good luck
Hadn’t heard of it recurring in the mx skin before but I have rapidly learnt that everyones dx is different. The only reference I could find to later rads is another trial involving rads to the brain as chemo and Herceptin can’t cross into and treat brain cells. Will be calling team this morning and will post when I find something out… Fingers crossed xx
Well it was a typo! What a way to stress someone out! Apparently I have a follow up appointment with an oncologist I haven’t met before that happens to specialise in Radiotherapy but that shouldn’t have been on the letter.
At least all is ok and I go into hospital tomorrow for recon on Wednesday.
