Hopefully I didn't butcher this question to badly!
Friend's message-
What??? I know this is going to sound stupid... But what exactly does stage 4 mean????? It doesn't sound good. I know I should educate myself on these things. I feel like a dumbass for asking.
Charmine McKinley January 28 at 1:00pm
LOL, don't look it up if you aren't good with that kind of stuff! I finally had to look, but I have enough sense to know that I am probably not the typical statistic. I am way young, and in very good health besides this issue. I don't know if I can explain it any better, without my doc telling me I'm understanding it. This is how I interpret it. There is no St 5 first off. People speak of end stage, and that is still stage 4 anyway you look at it. Stage 4 means a couple of different things, depending on the situation.
1- it means it is big, bad, and far advanced...and it will probably kill you if something else doesn't get you first. Not positive, but I think some cancers are automatically stage 4. There is no cure by this point, and the focus is keeping you alive and comfortable/healthy.
2-Stage 4 in my case means this. I was originally stage 2b-3. This was based on the size of the original tumor, and the fact that 2 of my breast lymph nodes were positive. Not considered far advanced, but it was big and appeared to be fairly aggressive in it's growth. Still standard breast cancer as far as doc could tell, so we did standard treatment. We don't believe that the chemo and radiation got rid of it all. This doesn't appear to be the case of it came back, just never gone. Even though we did surgery, cells can get left behind in the process, hence the chemo and radiation. The cancer has spread outside of my breast and breast lymph nodes. This is what has given mine the stage 4 name. Because it has spread (or metastasized) beyond the original cancer site.
Not sure, but I think the idea is if spread to other type lymph nodes, brain, blood, bone or organs- there is no cure so it gets the automatic stage 4 rating. I am good, because yes it has spread- but not into any of those 3 places. I am participating in a study, so I get all kinds of extra scans to check the cancer status that I would not normally get. So this is a good thing, the closer I am monitored.
Don't feel like a dumbass. I didn't understand any of this a year and a half ago. You would think I would be a bit more knowledgeable, as my stepmom had breast cancer a few years back. Nope, I was oblivious, and wrapped up in my own stuff, that I just didn't catch much at all. This is my hidden blessing, is the eye opening and new understanding that this has given me.
If you look up Stage 4 recurrent breast cancer, it will tell you the survival rate is somewhere between 16% and 20% for 5 years. Doc's best guess a month ago was between 2 and 10. My age seems to be the mystery factor. I think my age attributes to my health, so I should theoretically be able to fight it longer, and a better chance of remission? What I just read on the net kind of leads me to believe that cancer in younger women has the tendency to be more aggressive, so maybe I should be a bit more concerned then maybe I am.
Hope this answers your question, and thanks for another blog posting for my blog! Hope your day is as beautiful as ours is here!
Friend's message-
What??? I know this is going to sound stupid... But what exactly does stage 4 mean????? It doesn't sound good. I know I should educate myself on these things. I feel like a dumbass for asking.
Charmine McKinley January 28 at 1:00pm
LOL, don't look it up if you aren't good with that kind of stuff! I finally had to look, but I have enough sense to know that I am probably not the typical statistic. I am way young, and in very good health besides this issue. I don't know if I can explain it any better, without my doc telling me I'm understanding it. This is how I interpret it. There is no St 5 first off. People speak of end stage, and that is still stage 4 anyway you look at it. Stage 4 means a couple of different things, depending on the situation.
1- it means it is big, bad, and far advanced...and it will probably kill you if something else doesn't get you first. Not positive, but I think some cancers are automatically stage 4. There is no cure by this point, and the focus is keeping you alive and comfortable/healthy.
2-Stage 4 in my case means this. I was originally stage 2b-3. This was based on the size of the original tumor, and the fact that 2 of my breast lymph nodes were positive. Not considered far advanced, but it was big and appeared to be fairly aggressive in it's growth. Still standard breast cancer as far as doc could tell, so we did standard treatment. We don't believe that the chemo and radiation got rid of it all. This doesn't appear to be the case of it came back, just never gone. Even though we did surgery, cells can get left behind in the process, hence the chemo and radiation. The cancer has spread outside of my breast and breast lymph nodes. This is what has given mine the stage 4 name. Because it has spread (or metastasized) beyond the original cancer site.
Not sure, but I think the idea is if spread to other type lymph nodes, brain, blood, bone or organs- there is no cure so it gets the automatic stage 4 rating. I am good, because yes it has spread- but not into any of those 3 places. I am participating in a study, so I get all kinds of extra scans to check the cancer status that I would not normally get. So this is a good thing, the closer I am monitored.
Don't feel like a dumbass. I didn't understand any of this a year and a half ago. You would think I would be a bit more knowledgeable, as my stepmom had breast cancer a few years back. Nope, I was oblivious, and wrapped up in my own stuff, that I just didn't catch much at all. This is my hidden blessing, is the eye opening and new understanding that this has given me.
If you look up Stage 4 recurrent breast cancer, it will tell you the survival rate is somewhere between 16% and 20% for 5 years. Doc's best guess a month ago was between 2 and 10. My age seems to be the mystery factor. I think my age attributes to my health, so I should theoretically be able to fight it longer, and a better chance of remission? What I just read on the net kind of leads me to believe that cancer in younger women has the tendency to be more aggressive, so maybe I should be a bit more concerned then maybe I am.
Hope this answers your question, and thanks for another blog posting for my blog! Hope your day is as beautiful as ours is here!
I never understood staging until I got staging and I figured it out for breast cancer. All cancers are staged a little bit differently. But I think you did a pretty good job.
ReplyDeleteCharmine, I think you did a pretty good job of explaining this stuff. I agree, no one should feel like a dumb ass for asking, who would know about this stuff unless forced to? I'm glad you get to have all that extra monitoring. I had chemo recently, but still wonder if a few of those darn cancer cells are lurking around.
ReplyDeleteOh Nancy, that is not my favorite feeling! I wondered, but I really didn't worry. Docs assured how "standard" everything was in treatment. I really did walk around convinced that we cut it out. We jumped through the chemo and radiation hoops, and I was on Tamoxifen. It was gone, and life would return to a new normal. I was pretty surprised what my new normal really was, and what happened to that light at the end of the tunnel that I saw? It's kinda hard to talk to other survivors about this, because I don't want to make those "coming back" fears any worse. I know it needs to be talked about though, as it is a very real possibility. Try not to worry Nancy, you know what they say about the stress!
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