I need some chemo positive stories please

[biopsop]

I’ve been diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer, I don’t know my staging yet, MRI to be done. I’m 38, I’m devastated. Chemo terrifies me, I just have this vision of vomiting for 6 months and being a frail and ugly woman at the end of it. I know I should be pleased it’s treatable, of course I am, but right now I’m terrified. I know everyone reacts differently, I just really need some positive stories while I’m in the wait to start (I will have chemo first).

@biopsop I think although not totally sure about this because the second lump complicated things for me but if your MRI comes back with no lymph node involvement and nothing showing up in the chest area that you will be given stage 1 as the chance of distant spread in that scenario is very, very low. That is what my understanding was before they found my second lump.

Yes, I had my genetic test - only just got the result this week (took 4 weeks). Thankfully it was negative. I was more worried about the implications for my family than me but even so, I was grateful that I am hopefully going to get away with a lumpectomy.

Distant spread on first cancer diagnosis is quite rare (maybe 5%) and yours is a very small cancer so think it'll be fine, I'ld be pretty much 100% sure. I had 3 different ones but all in same breast, my scans didn't show a spread to lymph node but surgery came back with 1 node out of 3 had cancer but that's local not distant spread. That didn't really alter much - well it meant they did a second day surgery and I got chemo but no more lymph nodes infected where found. My biggest lump was 5cms. MRIs are normally very good for picking things up. I had one cancer missed initially and I think that's the one that had spread but as all in same breast it didn't make a difference really. Mine was lobular which often evades scans as it grows like a spidersweb then a lump at end. Treatments are coming out all the time, even since my treatment in 2022 there's new ones being offered improving odds. Though you get fed up of treatments but its great to have the choice.

I’ve had 9 rounds in total - once every 3 weeks . After 2 sessions, someone told me what they’d heard about fasting before and after treatment. There is some research available around this so I did do this and I did find it helped a lot with the nausea and the constipation - make sure you have some laxido in.
i found the first week I was tired and my legs ached from the injection I had to have 24 hours after. The second week I was starting to feel better and then 3rd week I was feeling ok.

Thank you, I have my first apt with my oncologist end of next week to talk through options. Not sure how much detail they will be able to go into considering I’ve not had the MRI yet.