Cancer Disease Symptoms

I am 38 years old and was diagnosed with Breast Cancer 14 months ago: Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, stage 2, one positive lymph node (sentinel lymph node), ER/PR+, HER-2 -, BRCA2+. I have completed chemotherapy, had three surgeries, radiation treatment and have been to hell and back. When I was diagnosed, I was told that I could expect a difficult year to come. That's it - difficult. Not many details, and certainly no one informed me of potential side effects or complications. It has been a frustrating road, but I'm seeing a light at the end of the tunnel now, 14 months later.

I am no expert, nor am I a doctor. Just a cancer patient wanting to help others in my shoes....

I started chemotherapy about two and a half months after diagnosis (because I had surgery right away, a lumpectomy, then I had to pack up my house and move across country -- a job transfer that came about just a couple of weeks before my diagnosis). I received AC (adriamycin & cytoxan), also known as "red death" first. I was warned about the usual side effects, such as nausea, hair loss, fatigue. When they told me I would be fatigued I though, "I have two kids under 3, I KNOW FATIGUE, no big deal." I could not have been more wrong - fatigue from chemo is nothing like the fatigue of having two babies 18 months apart!

The first thing I learned around this time which I had never been told about: WEIGHT GAIN. I always thought/assumed chemo made people loose weight. After all, that's what you see in the movies, right? I had a small hope that at least if I have to go through this hell, I'd finally take off those last remaining pounds of baby weight. I could not have been more wrong. I asked my doctor why I was gaining weight. I was told that is true that weight loss is associated with most cancers -- OTHER than Breast Cancer! Great! Wham - I'm 30 pounds heavier with no clothes that fit me and a huge disgust for myself and my appearance. Do I really need to have body image issue on top of it all? No. Apparently the weight gain is from steroids that they pump into you with the chemo to help with side effects and chemo makes your body basically go into menopause - or "chemopause" as some call it - which involves a slow down of metabolism and, thus, weight gain!

Well, I survived chemotherapy, thirty pounds heavier. Next step was more surgery. Since I had my initial surgery so quickly after diagnosis because I had to pack my home to move, I results of my genetic testing had not yet been received. The results ended up being positive; I carried the BRCA2 gene mutation. This meant I had a high risk of recurrence in the same breast AND in the other breast. I was also at a high risk for developing ovarian cancer. Thus my decision, after moving and after chemotherapy, to undergo a bilateral mastectomy and reduce my risk of recurrence by 95% - 99%. I also decided that I would eventually have an Oopherectomy to remove my ovaries & tubes. That decision was a no-brainer, since Ovarian cancer is known as the "silent killer" because it's often not detected until it is late-stage. I had my two beautiful daughters and had my tubes tied after the second because I knew I didn't want more than kids. So about five weeks after chemo ended, I underwent surgery. I chose to have the bilateral mastectomy with immediate reconstruction using fat/tissue from my abdomen (tram flap). My plastic surgeon had told me that if there was any chance I would be receiving radiation therapy, he would not give me implants, so I went with the tram flap option.

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