dearest Z-flower and Bluedahlia,
wow!!
you are both such brave brave women!

my oldest sister has cancer of the uterous, so they removed all her female
organs -but it spread to her lower abdomen -in the lymph nodes -they also removed some of them -so now my dear sister is 60, she is undergoing radiation treatments...

what would you bravery winners tell a cancer patient so they wont lose hope?

thank you!

Its hard to deal with one's own mortality, especially when we see healthy people all around us. I treated the breast cancer as an uninvited guest that I ousted and who is not welcomed back. My guard was down but not anymore.

I have started eating better taking Vitamin D, drinking lots of orange juice and trying to laugh a lot. Tell your sister to believe she will be OK and she will.

That's very interesting, Bluedahlia. Did you have lobular or tubulo-lobular? I believe they are very different. Did you have microcalcifications?

Tubulo-lobular is usually highly differentiated, as mine was. Invasive lobular is less well-differentiated.

I was told not to have chemo because my tumor was under 1 cm, and any benefit was negligable. Two oncologists agreed about that.

I saw my oncologist every 3 months, til April, when she told me to come back in 6 months. That was nice.

Do you know if you have dense breasts?

CTenaLouise, I'm sorry to hear about your sister. Is she also going to have chemotherapy of some kind?

It's possible now to live several years with stage 4 cancer, so I hope your sister is getting very good treatment. Perhaps she should get other oncologists' opinions about what she needs to do now.

I hope she has the strength to continue the fight of her life. Sometimes it's hard.

My aunt is having a tough time now with her mastectomy and the staph infection she got in the hospital. She's dreading chemo, but the women I met at radiation who had chemo didn't get ill from it. One woman gained weight, and got up a dawn daily to go running.

My aunt is anticipating and obsessing and dreading constantly. She's decided to see if an antidepressant will help her cope.

I just take one day at a time and stay in the present, even if I don't want to be there. My cancer looked alot worse for a while, and I expected to need one or two mastectomies.

It didn't upset me; I just took everything as it came because thowing a tantrum, so to speak, would only hurt myself and those around me. My brother and I even joked about it all, even when we thought the worst. Humor is very important to cope with cancer or any difficulty.

I needed several biopsies that took three hours, and as I was waiting to go in, I said to my brother, you know, I really don't want to be here! But I was, and that was that. Just have to face it all head-on.

I felt that way in the operating room too. My surgery was 2.5 hours late and I couldn't drink anything and my mouth was so dry. It was an excruciating wait. So I was glad to finally get the operation going. Anyway, the way they strapped me in, I felt as if I was about to take off in the space shuttle! I thought: I really don't want to be here, but the mood in the room was humorous, so I smiled and took off.

I hope your sister feels better very soon.

I don't have dense breasts, but even so, lobular is pretty sneaky, so am very vigilant with my follow-ups. I have invasive lobular, but was told the cells looked more like normal cells than cancer cells. Don't know what that means but I'm thinking its good?

Right now am all clear and my blood work is beginning to look good too. It was pretty low after the rads.

It's hard not to think about it every day, but I'm hoping as time passes it will get easier.

Hi bluedahlia,

It sounds as though your cells were well differentiated which is very good. It usually indicates a less agressive type of cancer.
This article states that treatment can be the same as invasive ductal, and with no chemo:

The influence of infiltrating lobular carcinoma on the outcome of patients treated with breast-conserving surgery and radiation therapy

Conclusions: Patients with infiltrating lobular carcinoma have a similar outcome following CS (conservative surgery) and RT (radiation therapy) to patients with infiltrating ductal carcinoma and to patients with tumors that have mixed ductal and lobular features. We conclude that the presence of infiltrating lobular histology should not influence decisions regarding local therapy in patients with Stage I and II breast cancer.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/l4257x325u516410/