All in all, it sounds like good news. More and more I'm hearing about chemo after surgery, even with good margins. My brother just passed the 1/2 way mark on his chemo.

Yeah, no cancer cells in the lymph nodes they tested and noen left in her breast tissue, btu they still want her to do it (and she is). From what I understand, chemo is so effective they want anyone who can physically handle it to go through it "just in case" and put aside all doubts about rogue cancer cells.

That is excellent news, Dip.

That is great news and yes it is not uncommon for chemo even though lymph nodes are clear. Mine were also but still had chemo and radiation (based on where tumor was). It sounds like they will be giving her close to what I got and it's not that bad, little hair loss and if she follows instructions for the few days after chemo little or no stomach issues. I didn't after one treatment and paid for it dearly so I was "a good girl" after that. Prayers continue that this phase will pass quickly and with little angst.

Good news, Dipster!!!!

That's great Dpi! Mom had radiation, but not chemo. Her nodes were clear and they caught it early, and she was 77/78. They treat you differently depending on your age. They had given her one course of treatment, but then when they heard that my grandmother lived to be 102, they gave her more aggressive treatment.

Interesting, when my wife had breast cancer, it also had not spread to the lymph nodes. Her doctors wanted to put her in a study program where women that had breast cancer that was less than xx cm and not in lymph nodes to not have chemo. They are trying to determine at what point chemo is unnecessary in those cases.
We opted to not go into that program and take a more aggressive stand since she probably wouldn't have received chemo. I hope some day they can determine whether or not chemo is needed, but being aggresive in treatment choices makes us sleep better at night.

Update, for those who've been following

Whiel healing from her double mastectomy and geeting her expanders filled, the docs performed the ONCA test on her second tumor to see her chances of having cancer again with different treatments. For example, 9% chance if you get chemo. The problem is, the test is nto accurate for young people because they don't often get this cancer. Anyway, it turnes out that there is only a 1-3% difference between getting chemo + tamoxifan versus 1 year menopause + tamoxifan. Considering all the side effects of chemo, she chose to do the one year of forced menopause (monthly shots) plus 5 years of tamoxifan. So far so good. Her reconstruction is Novermber 4th After that, nothign but tallying up her days as a survivor.

Thank you all for all the preayers and well wishes. Support and prayer do so much

Continued prayers for those days as a survivor to pile high!

Another update...

My friend had her reconstruction the beginning of November. Over a month later, she's still battling infection in her left implant which is preventing her from healign properly and her skin at the incision sites keeps tearing. So today, she's going in for surgery AGAIN to remove that implant, clean it out really well, and put a new one in, thsi time with drainage tubes. This is on the side that had cancer and she had two lymph nodes removed. They originally thought she'd manage without draining tubes so they didn't use them when they did her reconstruction in November. In hindsite, they shoudl have done it "to be on the safe side" considering she's in surgery again today.

I feel so bad for her and the battle she's fighting. But I guess on the bright side, at least she didn't have to suffer through chemo. She started her first hormone therapy last week and is welcomign the hot flashes in thsi cold weather They are hoping she'll be able to handle forced menopause to go through TWO years instead of one (and a minimum of 6 months) to give a better chance of not having the cancer come back (since her form was estrogen-driven).