Who has had success after 9 weeks of PC and 3 cycles of EC?

  • 69 replies
  • 30 subscribers
  • 6672 views

I was wondering if anyone has had success with this in terms of shrinking their tumor?  Mine is Grade 3, Stage 2 and was last measured at 43mm x 38mm.  I start my 9 weeks of PC on Tuesday.  I'm wondering how long they will persevere before just doing a mastectomy.  What bothers me is the prospect of months of chemo with no improvement or it growing even bigger and leaving the door open for it to spread.  I think I'm confused about the notion of trying to shrink it when it could just be removed along with the lymph node(s) before it spreads elsewhere.

  • Hi yes op still booked for 28th..I meet my breast cancer nurse next Tuesday. I presume she will go everything. I found the steroids kept me awake when I was on them. But luckily only got the steroids with the double dose. The nurse said to take last dose of steroids between 2pm and 3pm to help you sleep. But still didn’t really help me. I kept a diary record also. I took my temperature every day and recorded it. Glad you managed the injections ok. It’s amazing how you cope with things. The chemo itself was fine what I found hard was staying away from people with all this covid about. I didn’t want to risk catching it and delaying any treatment. Especially Dec and Jan when Omicrom was rife…..the days were long. You get fed up watching TV. However we are heading towards spring thankfully. Xxx

  • Hello i hope you hve been feeling not too horrible during chemo. I had the same, i had 9 paclitaxel and carboplatin every 3 weeks, then i had ec i was meant to have 3 ec but had 2 in the end due to severe side effects. Im happy to report that this all helped to shrink my tumour as well and there was only 1% cancer cells detected before my masectomy. I really hipe this will be the same for you. I understand your concerns about why they dont just do the surgery as i was feeling the same. 

  • I'm tolerating it pretty well (once a week for 9 weeks)  but am aware that when the EC starts it becomes hardcore.  At the risk of jinxing it, the lump is actually getting smaller so fingers crossed it's not just retreating to regroup elsewhere.  Just taking it a day at a time.  I'm glad you had a great result.  xx

  • Hi, I will starting the same treatment as you next week, I am dreading the side effects but reading your posts has made me more positive xxx

  • I was like that when I first started but honestly it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought. Good luck xxx

  • I’m here if you ever want to ask anything …I’ll try and help x

  • This weekly PC is really not that bad.  It's tolerable.  As long as I watch what I'm eating (there's some great info out there on foods to each during chemo) it's not that bad.  My treatment day is Tuesdays.  I had my third one last week and my hair started thinning the day after.  Not bald patches but just like massive shedding so it is getting thinner.  

  • Hi My mastectomy last Monday went fine. I’ve been very lucky no pain just a tight feeling with the dressings on. I got home same day as op with a drain and the breast cancer nurse removed the drain on Friday. Was good to get it removed as I kept forgetting it was there and kept tripping over it Rofl..I’ve been managing the daily exercises. I lost my hair after my second EC treatment. xxx