Micromets are good, hon. Teeniest TINIEST bit of spread into ONE node. Chances are removing THAT node got ALL of the "lymphvascular invasion" OUT of you. It's honestly like super-teeny tiny. Lymph nodes tend to work in clusters, around a sentinal node. The sentinal feeds the ones clustered around it. A micromet on ONE sentinal with no spread to the surrounding cluster of nodes is really good--the cancer didn't move out of the sentinal. You are techically staged 2B, but quite honestly, you're a whole lot closer to a 2A or a 1 than most a whole lot of 2B diagnoses. She's oncotyping you to see whether or not you even have to mess with chemo (I am SO hoping you don't, but it is a possibility....)

Oncotype is going to give your MO an idea about whether or not chemo is beneficial for you. Some ER/PR+ cancers respond to chemo, and some don't. IF yours doesn't, there is a lower chance of recurrence and a higher chance the poison wouldn't touch it anyhow. And then chemo isn't recommended, and you launch straight into the endocrine therapy (tamoxifen or AI) as your best insurance against the cancer popping up again. But if it does respond to chemo (a higher oncotype score), your MO will probably recommend hitting your body with some chemo as a preventative measure.

My girlfriend figured she was stage 1 but scored a sentinal micromet upon pathology (but she was HER2, and we don't oncotype HER2--it is aggressive and typically responds well to chemo, so she did her chemo). However she was given the option of skipping the radiation, and she did.

So, Laura, your still, in spite of your micromet, a VERY early stage cancer, and you are going to kick its butt. Just that one test left, and you'll have a very solid get-well plan in front of you and you can settle into the business at hand, whether it be chemo or endocrine suppression. It's all good--no different today than yesterday, truly.

lymphvascular invasion means the breast cancer cells managed to escape the ducts and go into the lymphatic system, which explains why you have tiny amounts of cancer cells in your lymph node. Anybody who has lymph node involvement would have lymphvascular invasion. If it is not found on the pathology report it's because the particular sample they looked at didn't have it, not that it isn't found anywhere else.
Having micromets means the cancer was caught early and the invasion just started, chemo will depend on the oncotype test and the HER2 receptors. I had node involvement but the pathology report said lymphvascular invasion absent. Obviously there was invasion or I wouldn't have cancer in my lymph nodes. I ended up with chemo without even running the oncotype test because I was premenopausal. It was tough but you find strength you don't even know you have. You get through it and live to tell the tale, hang in there :)

Low oncotype score means low risk of recurrence and the benefit from chemo will not outweigh the side effects. It's a good thing! Enjoy you vacation :)

Hi Laura,

I borrowed the abbreviation ECE from JenBorst. It's where the tumor started to break through the lymph node. I didn't choose the mastectomy at first. I had a lumpectomy and my margins weren't clear, the tumor in the breast was larger than expected and a lot of scar tissue from the removal of cysts many years ago was removed so i wouldn't have had much left. Instead of going back in for another lumpectomy I ended up with the mastectomy.
After radiation I was on Arimidex for almost a year and then the bone/joint pain got bad so I was switched to femara which wasn't much better. I've been taking aromasin for over 3 years. For me, i dont experience the pain like I did with the others. I can get irritable and my insomnia is really bad even with lunesata. But I had that problem before diagnosis. Everyone reacts differently so if one gives you too many side effects you can try another. If you're pre-menopausal you will only be able to take tamoxifen until you become post menopausal.

Since I didn't have chemo, reconstruction was the hardest part for me. I had a total of 8 surgeries over 3 years. It was very hard to achieve symmetry since I was pretty saggy and had a unilateral. I also had to start over at one point-long story.

I know that not knowing your treatment plan is one of the worst parts of all of this. I went for weeks agonizing over 2 choices I was given for chemo only to find out I didn't need it after all. You'll feel much better once you find out more answers. Sorry you have to wait so long!

Deb

Chemo only poked holes in my 9cm tumor. The surgery was after chemo. Surgeon says cancer cells were very much alive after surgery and following up continuously with onc is very important. I did do the 30 radiation treatments.