My wife had stage 1 breast cancer, poorly differentiated 1.1 cm invasive, her2/neu positive, er/pr negative. I don't want to do chemotherapy. I am looking for some one who skipped chemo.
Cancer - 5 Answers
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1 :
Your wife is the one with cancer so you don’t have to worry about chemotherapy. What is important is what she wants to do and whether or not someone undergoes chemo is always the patient’s choice. What someone else decided to do has nothing to do with your wife’s cancer and should have no place in her decision. Treatment recommendations are based primarily on evidence. Her tumor size and negative nodes are not a high risk for recurrence, but she has an aggressive cancer and her age plays a role. Her oncologist should explain the reasons behind their recommendation and they should make sense to your wife. Then she should get one or two other opinions before she makes her decision.
2 :
Poorly differentiated is an indication of an aggressive cancer. HER2 positive ER/PR negative is an indication of a VERY aggressive cancer. And you don't want to do chemo? What, did you just get an insurance policy out on her? This is not a cancer to take chances with. Myself, I'd do the chemo, and thank god for the people who worked and sacrificed themselves to make it available. What did her oncologist recommend?
3 :
I understand that the thought of chemotherapy is scary, but many people do go through it, and recover completely afterward. Try to look at it this way:1) Have a (relatively mild) chemotherapy now and reduce the risk of ever needing any further treatment or 2) Risk emergence of widespread cancer later on which is harder to control, and quite possibly impossible to cure. But to answer your question as posed - Some do survive aggressive stage 1 breast cancer without chemotherapy, but the odds of survival improves if chemotherapy is given (Which is why it is offered in the first place).
4 :
When my wife was doing her six weeks of radiation we met two women that did not need to go through chemotherapy. They were both stage 0 and there were very clear margins so the oncologist knew that cancer had NOT gone into their bloodstream. And that is what chemotherapy does, it chases down cancer cells that are at the tumor site and ready to enter the bloodstream or that have already entered the bloodstream to other parts of the body. It hunts them down and destroys them. Your wife may only need to do 15-12 weeks of chemotherapy to make sure that the cancer is out of her system. It is an insurance policy and the price is steep. Chemotherapy is NOT easy, but having advanced cancer is not either. In the end, it is up to the patient. I understand how you feel about your wife and her possible suffering doing chemotherapy, but right now it is at an early stage, one that has a 95% chance of survival rate if she chooses traditional treatment. Before limits are put on her by herself or you LISTEN to the expert on your team (her oncologist) who will tell you what she must do to survive. Then weigh her options. Our oncologist said if we did chemotherapy, get a mastectomy, follow it with more chemotherapy and do 6.5 weeks of radiation our five year survival rate would be 85%. And that is what we did. So if your oncologist says with traditional methods her survival rate is 95%, but if you opt out of chemotherapy it drops to 70% and if you do not do radiation then it is 62%. Then you will weigh the costs and understand what that means. Make an informed decision, this is not a game it is her life at stake. It costs nothing to hear what her BEST chance of beating the cancer entails.
5 :
my wife died of breast cancer the sickness and side effects are nothing compares to the pain and fear of dieing if the doctor says do it do it if anyone i know got breast cancer even if the doctor said do not do it i would insist they did it if you miss the window of saving her life , then she is dead
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