Sunday, June 30, 2013

The last day of June! Time sure has been going by quickly. It is hard to believe I am a survivor of five months! American Cancer Society considers you a survivor as soon as you are diagnosed. I still have a long way to go yet, but I am over the hump ( or lump!!)!

I was doing some research and this helps explain what triple negative cancer means. I pulled this information from the National Breast Cancer Foundation Inc web site. http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/triple-negative-breast-cancer

A diagnosis of triple negative breast cancer means that the three most common types of receptors known to fuel most breast cancer growth–estrogen, progesterone, and the HER-2/neu gene– are not present in the cancer tumor. This means that the breast cancer cells have tested negative for hormone epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER-2), estrogen receptors (ER), and progesterone receptors (PR). Since the tumor cells lack the necessary receptors, common treatments like hormone therapy and drugs that target estrogen, progesterone, and HER-2 are ineffective. However and lucky for me, using chemotherapy to treat triple negative breast cancer is still an effective option. In fact, triple negative breast cancer may respond even better to chemotherapy in the earlier stages than many other forms of cancer.

Triple negative breast cancer occurs in about 10-20% of diagnosed breast cancers and is more likely to affect younger people, African Americans, Hispanics, and/or those with a BRCA1 gene mutation.

Triple negative breast cancer can be more aggressive and difficult to treat. Also, the cancer is more likely to spread and reoccur. The stage of breast cancer and the grade of the tumor will influence your prognosis. My cancer was stage 2 with an aggressiveness grade of 3, which is the highest.

I’ll keep you updated on my dr appointments.

Overall, today was a good day. 🙂 The sun was shining, it was a beautiful day and not too hot, the birds were singing and glad that we cleared out the vines in the backyard to find two bird houses for them. The Cardinal family has been spending a lot of time at the feeder teaching its babies to eat seeds.