Pamela,
All you have to do to post back is to type in under post comment on your own thread. You started this thread so it's yours!
Welcome to the community :)
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Hi Pamela,
I'm sorry you're having to deal with this. Cancer stinks! Treatment is do-able but not fun by any means.
I had invasive lobular carcinoma. It never showed on a mammogram but did finally show a little bit on an ultra sound. The MRI showed it for what it really was, very large and very aggressive. I am ER and PR positive and HER2 negative so my pathology is different than yours. It's not the most common cancer and it tends to be rather large. Mine was 10 cm. I had to have chemo first for 4 rounds and then my mastectomy followed by 4 more chemo's and 8 weeks radiation. The cancer was pretty aggressive, it made it to my nodes while I was in chemo. You have a HER2 positive cancer and you need to treat it very aggressive as well. You will most likely have follow up of herceptin. Invasive lobular carcinoma tends to go bilateral so I also had my other breast removed. It had 2 masses in at the time of removal but they weren't cancer, thank goodness!
You really need to ask your oncologist about the recurrence rate because there are so many things involved. What stage and grade was your cancer? Did you have nodes? Did you have surgery? If not check into DIEP reconstruction, it uses your own tissue but leaves your muscles in place and tolerates radiation pretty well. What did your oncologist tell you?
Please feel free to ask questions, I sincerely doubt I'm the only one.