You Have Triple Negative Breast Cancer

My story is to remind all you Mums out there to please check your breasts for lumps or have your mamograms every two years. I have always thought that I could tell when things wern’t right with my body so had left my mamograms slide for a few years although I had always felt for lumps but never found any so continued happily through life until a friend said she was going to have a mamogram and asked me how long it was since I had had one, I was ashamed to admit it was a long time so I agreed to accompany her and have one too.Two days later I received a phone call from Breast Screen Qld asking me to come into their Chermside headquarters for further investigation, I soon realised something was wrong. After having an ultrasound on my right breast it was confirmed that I had a small lump undetected by me or them but visible on the mamogram so arrangements were made for me to be booked in for surgery as soon as possible, it was the 17th December just a week before Xmas so I had to wait until Janurary 25th for my surgery, nobody seem particularly concerned as it was only a small lump and I was told I would only need Radiation after surgery to remove it. Everything went well for the surgery and the tumor was removed and I went back to see the Surgeon after a few weeks , thats when things started to get crazy, I was told they were surprised to find that from the pathology I had Triple Negative Breast Cancer when I asked what that was I was told it is relativately rare, only about 15% of all breast cancers but it is a very aggressive form which tends to travel to bones and brain and therefore must be treated aggressively, Chemotherapy followed by Radiation the only treatment, and so started my whirlwind of treatment.Firstly to have a Port-a-Cath inserted in my left chest for the chemo to be administered followed the same day by my first round of Chemo.I would have to have several combinations of drugs every two weeks the first ones given over 4 rounds and then they would change to another couple of drugs for the next 4 rounds so altogether 16 weeks of Chemo. I had never realised until this time that there were different types of breast cancer and when I tried to find information on Triple Negative there seemed to be nothing on the subject at all.Even the publications from the Breast Cancer Network didn’t give it a mention and the none of the traditional drugs like Tamoxafen were able to be used as it is negative to all hormone related breast cancers. So I embarked on my treatment and I would like to say I sailed through it but Chemo is not nice and does a lot of damage to your body, after the first 10 weeks of treatment I developed a fever and was feeling very very ill so I was admitted to hospital with a clot on my lung (caused from Taxol) one of the chemo drugs.Pneumonia I was so sick I thought I was dying and couldn’t breathe but after lots more drugs was able to come home again. That put an end to any more Chemo treatment so after six weeks I started Radiation every day 5 days a week for 6 weeks. It took quite a long time for my poor old body to recover from the battering it had taken and I was on blood thinners for 6 months afterwards but after losing all my hair I ended up with very tight curly hair which has since grown out after each cut and a diagnosis of “Clinical Remission” it will be 5 years until I have the all clear but for the moment I am very happy and thankful to be able to enjoy more of my life and to celebrate it with my large family of 7 children, their partners, 18 grandchildren, and 2 great-grandchildren.

Posted by mom319710, 5th December 2018