QoL v treatment

I'm a very different age from you (mid 40s) and would have taken anything and everything they offered to give myself the best chance of it not returning.

I have gone through chemo, lumpectomy, radiotherapy, zoladex to stop my ovaries working and exemestane to stop oestrogen being produced anywhere else.

Far and away the worst was chemo and then the sudden menopause from the zoladex. 

The exemestane on top hasn't made a huge difference to me. I have soreness and stiffness but this goes away with activity. 

I would say, why not give one of them a go and see how you get on? They told me to give the exemestane 6 months and if I didn't like it, I could switch to something else. There are lots of options and if something is making you miserable, you can try something else. Choosing tamoxifen or letrozole doesn't mean you are committed to it for the next 5 years.

A lot of people don't get any side effects or minimal that it doesn't affect quality of life.

I'm still doing everything I want to do.

Maybe you could chat through your concerns with your oncologist and they will be able to reassure you about continued choices. 

My mother in law has been on tamoxifen 30 years and it hasn’t stopped her at all. She’s several years older than you. 72 is no age and there is no reason you’re quality of life is likely to be poor. If you get side effects then maybe then is the time to question, but it sounds like you’re still relatively early in your journey. Don’t write yourself off yet! 

Hello Iso

I am mid 60s and have accepted everything offered to me to stop the BC HER2+, ER+ [with one positive node at biopsy] gremlin returning - my worry at the outset was that because of age, I might not get access to everything possible which could be chucked at the BC.

So far, I have had chemo,  EC + Docetaxel, which was not exactly the best gig, but was doable in the short-term, in the hope of more time without recurrence and lesser surgery. Started on Herceptin and Pertuzumab alongside the Doc and will continue getting this for a year [till March 2020].

The above resulted in a) downstaging the disease from needing mastectomy and complete clearance of axilla b) complete pathological clearance - no nasties found on path report from the lumpectomy or sample of nodes.

Then I had radiotherapy, started Letrozole and Zometa [bisphosphenates].

My onc used the NHS Predict algorithm on my data and could show me the contribution of each of these treatments to my probability of surviving 10 years. Every one of them added an extra slice of chance, taking it from just a 58% probability with surgery alone, up to more than 79% with all of the treatments. So for me, it is a no-brainer to have the lot. I am so glad to be getting them all and grateful to the NHS for providing all of this care free, based on need.

I am about a year since diagnosis, finished chemo in March and have been having the other treatments since. I feel great and can do everything again that I could do before. Since the spring I have had good quality of life, been gardening as usual, and regularly walk 10K. The winter during lockdown was quite a good time to have the chemo - no one else was doing very much exciting either.

Don't believe all the negativity about the treatments. The folk who are doing fine don't tend to post on help-sites.

If I could do this, I dont see why others couldn't do it too, if they wanted. We are all different and the BC care team do everything possible to help minimise side-effects, get us through and out the other side, successfully.

Wishing you all the best in your decision-making.

WallyDug

Hi Iso Can you tell me why you decided to forgo Chemotherapy at this time? And why they offered it to you. I don't have breast cancer now but had a high reoccurance score so decided to have chemotherapy to reduce the risk it will come  back im 6 4 . 

Thankyou X 

Jayne 

Thanks for your good advice. You have had a horrible time and I wish you all the luck in the world

That's very good to know. Thanks for replying

Thank you for replying. I do very much understand the point about the negativity. It is a bit like reviews on Amazon where you only see the very happy or very annoyed reviews! I too have seen the predict table but it excludes radiotherapy at the moment though the authors plan to add this at a later stage. it could, potentially, add more % points than chemo so the table is, to me, not complete.

So glad you are living life to the full.

Good luck

Lots of reasons. My surgeon was very sure he removed all the tumour with no margins, the biopsies were clear and the radiotherapy addressed the chances of stray cells being left in the breast. I then looked at the other treatments on offer. All of them had significant side effects but chemo was clearly the biggest debilitating treatment and the herceptin that went with it seemed just as bad. There is no doubt chemo affects the immune system and in a COVID world, that was the last thing I wanted. For me it is all about a balancing act between pros and cons. I may regret it later but I just felt that my body could not take this extra burden. The right decision? Who knows? Ask me in a few years if I'm still around!

Best wishes to you and here's hoping that you never get breast cancer.

Thankyou for your reply , it's about weighing everything up really . I hope I have made the right decision time will  tell. I do worry about the risks but had breast cancer in  both breasts so in balance it was the right decision for me .  I have to have 4 treatments can't wait for them to end. I have had a bilateral mastectomy node clearance, they are  not planning to give me  radiation  as chemotherapy is just to reduce reoccurance let's hope so ! 

Take care X 

Jayne