Sentinel Lymph Biospy results

So sorry you have received this news.  I had a full clearance with my mastectomy, 8 out of 11 nodes were positive but surgery gave me clear margins.  I knew right from my biopsy results that this was the plan.

My advice is only to do the exercises, as per the leaflet,  3 times a day, every day for as long as possible or necessary.

It really helped me as I did have some reduced movement after surgery. 

I have also had 8 cycles of chemo,  15 of radiotherapy and am just starting Letrozole and Ribociclib,  it feels never ending. 

Anything else you would like to know please feel free to ask.

Sending you hugs for the next stage of your treatment. 

Hi there. I can’t believe cancer was found after chemotherapy which should have killed all cancerous cells in the body. Has your oncologist said why this may have happened? I wonder if more sessions of chemo were needed. 

It wouldn’t have shown up on the scan as they are microscopic and cancer is only shown on a scan when it has come to the surface and creates symptoms/a lump. That’s what my breast care nurse told me as I had a clear MRI and CT also and then following lymph node biopsy 1 out of 3 had cancer in I couldn’t believe it as like you, nothing was shown on scans and I had no underarm lump. It got me thinking if that hasn’t shown up on scans what else hasn’t shown up.

I’ve heard that some people are offered extra radiotherapy in that area rather than axillary node clearance so maybe that’s something to see if that’s an option. I had axillary node clearance and whilst it was a quicker operation than the mastectomy I had to do more exercises than the mastectomy to keep the arm moving and I had the drain in longer and developed quite bad cording so was referred to physio so please keep up with your exercises. 

The sentinel nodes taken during my bilateral mastectomy were found to be cancerous (2/3 one side, 1/3 the other), yet nothing came up on any of my ultrasound/MRI/CT scans either, so I completely get the shock you are feeling. This finding was one of the reasons I ended up having chemo, which I wasn't expecting.

As per Sparkle498uk's comment, I was told by my consultant that extra radiotherapy would be as effective as auxiliary node removal, and was less invasive/came with less side effects, so I have opted for that on his recommendation x