success stories - real life accounts of women who have survived breast cancer and managed to put it behind them

In 2026 you can add you a Neddy xx

I really needed those success stories tonight. I am going to look through all of them to see if anybody survived long term with triple negative  BC .  I still can’t shake off the feeling that it’s all too late for me .  Do others feel this way or is it just me xx

hi Harleybear it's not just you
I was convinced that I was going to wake up after surgery with one of the BCNs I didn't like, stroking my arm, telling me it was all hopeless and there was nothing they could do for me.

that was six years ago

you are in the right place, having done the right thing

you got checked, you got diagnosed and you're getting treated.

There is a new drug for triple negative, I read about it the other day

For me, with Her2+++, it also seemed like a death sentence, even with the wonder drug Herceptin.

Even now, six years on, I'm not really 'over it'.  I still have days where I think they must have missed something.

In my case they did miss things, they missed a lump in 2012, a suspicious lesion in 2015, a whole tumour during surgery in 2015 ... I probably had good reason to doubt their competence.

But on the whole, early stage breast cancer is still very treatable with surgery, chemo and radio. 

I had quite a few reasons to think it was all too late for me but I'm still here

Carolyn

xxxx

good idea! My mother in law was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in both breasts, aged 40. She had a double mastectomy with no reconstruction- it was the 1980s. She then had some pretty brutal chemo which nearly finished her off before the cancer did, but survived. 15 years later she developed secondaries in her lymph nodes, had them removed (these days they would have been biopsied with the mastectomy but that was then). More chemo and radiotherapy and it appeared to have been beaten, but it came back again in her liver and bones. On that round of chemo, she had a pulmonary embolism as a result of the damage to her system, but recovered and the secondary cancer was beaten off again. She is now in her 70s and has treatment periodically but it is much more targeted so very different to the early rounds. She says it’s safer! Plus regular scanning keeps an eye on any appearance of secondaries.

My MIL is single so she travelled extensively despite her illness. She is rather surprised to still be alive and kicking but fir her age is in good health. 

Hi Harleybear......I'm here reading your plea six years from diagnosis and although I won't have this year's  mammogram until early December, I have no reason to think it won't be clear. There was never any spread even to the nodes. I know I was lucky a very observant radiologist spotted three small tumours which hadn't been there two years previous. I too had TNBC which did mean chemo and radiotherapy but sometimes when I read what the hormone inhibitors do to people as side effects, I'm not sorry it was the triple negative.

In addition I have a friend, who will be celebrating her 5th year cancer free after TNBC in December Most doctors agree that after five years, that particular cancer will be gone.

I hope your treatment will go well and you should recover too. 

Love Karen

Thankyou , that’s good to hear and pleased you are now ok .  Xx

come back and shout if you need to let off steam, vent or otherwise offload. use the @ to tag us.

hugs

Carolyn

xxx

Leolady 56

what an amazing story !! So inspiring xx

Harleybear, I had bilateral breast cancer ,with spread to axillary lymph nodes in 2009. Had L mastectomy R lumpectomy, chemo and radiotherapy to both sides. 4 years ago I had bowel cancer., treated surgically with chemo as mop up. I feel.very lucky in that I am clear of both at the present time. 
We don’t hear enough about positive stories! 
Take heart from this thread, and good luck xxxx

I also had axillary clearance e of course. X