Honestly - and this is only my personal opinion and probably not medically valid - if I had a positive lymph node, I would have taken chemo for my own peace of mind. Well, in the way we all want chemo - not! Although, having said that I did have chemo with no positive nodes because my oncologist is very aggressive - which may not have been the best choice either!

I had chemo first and then surgery. During surgery they only took out the sentinel node. It still had a tiny bit of cancer in it. No other nodes were taken or tested. Because there was still cancer in a node, I have to do more chemo now due to risk of spreading. I regret doing chemo first. I feel like i should have done surgery first and then chemo. Then i would have been finished with treatment by now.

I may be wrong but I thought nodes were sequentially biopsied to make sure all cancerous ones were removed. So if the sentinel node was positive, then take the next one and test, then the next etc. until clean nodes are found. Often chemo is recommended after surgery depending on those results, oncotype etc. That was my experience, at least.

I have stage 1 her2 positive lymph node negative and will have 6 rounds of tch chemo and 1 year of herceptin 4 weeks radiation and hormone therapy. Seems aggressive but I'm thankful because her2 positive is aggressive as well

Monday I’m getting my second opinion from a breast surgeon.... thank you all so much for your helpful posts!! @MyBCTeam users... @Ressie04

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