Hi I have posted on the after treatment is finished for myself a few times, today I got worrying news regarding a good friend from where I used to live, she originally had a WLE followed by radiotherapy and Tamoxifen, they took 17 lymph nodes and tested 10 and daid they were clear, that was 2 year ago, she has been for check ups and all was okay, but now she asked for mri as she has had pain in her hip and back, results not good, she has mets in spine, neck and liver, she is on morphine patches, surely that can’t be it? What treatment would normally follow? I thought she would get radiotherapy or chemo cos she never had that 1st time around, they have since said 7 of nodes were affected, there has to be hope, I did not think anyone would just be given morphine patches, it is at the base of her brain too, any advise would be very much appreciated, she is understandably devastated. I have given her the details of this site, and told her it is invaluable, she has 4 children, two quite young still at home, she is still going to work even tho in pain just for some normality, she just feels like screaming right now, thankyou all in advance, Rowlaine X
Sorry Rowlaine
cant help on what treatment your friend would get -only just been diagnosed with secondaries myself
Just wanted to say I am thinking of you and your friend at this time and wishing i could help
xxxJools
Rowlaine,
Like Jools I can’t help on treatment but just wanted to say that I’m sending some hugs to you and your friend, thank goodness she has you to help her through this.
Did they make a mistake first time round by saying that lymph nodes were clear when 7 were affected then or are they saying that the ones affected were the ones that they didn’t test - why didn’t they test them all??? that is so bad as if they had found out then there would have been a huge chance that she would have had chemo.
Love hugs and best wishes to you both
About a third of people with node negative cancers go on to develop secondary breast cancer. Lymph node testing isn’t perfect as a predictor of the future. Similarly about a third of those with lymph node involvement don’t go on to get secondary breast cancer.
Cancer is a very capricious disease
I’ve got secondaries in my spine, rib and liver and I’ve had a course of Taxotere and I’m having ongoing treatment with Herceptin, Tamoxifen and Pamidronate for my bones. It sounds like your friend is still young and probably in good health so I would be surprised if they didn’t offer her some treatment. The cancer won’t ever go away now but hopefully she can have treatment to slow it down and give her relief. For instance, I recently had rads on my rib to relieve the pain there.
I don’t want to cast doubt on your friend’s version of things, but could she possibly be confused about the treatment on offer? Goodness knows it’s a devastating piece of news and perhaps she didn’t quite take in what they said to her. Some consultants can be a bit abrupt and unhelpful so perhaps they didn’t explain clearly enough. If she was my friend I would strongly suggest that she have a chat with a BCN who can help her understand what is going on. Could you maybe go along to hospital with her for support, where you can ask questions she might not think of and you could write down the answers so she can go over the information later in her own time.
Best wishes to your friend and I hope she finds some treatment that helps her.