On July 20, 2023, we finally saw my oncologist for the Oncotype numbers. The results of the Oncotype DX test are given as a recurrence score. The recurrence score predicts the chance of the cancer coming back. Your results will include a recurrence score from 0 to 100. A low recurrence score is 25 or lower. A high recurrence score is 26 or higher.
We went in with zero worries. My cancer was incredibly small, to the point that the biopsy removed all of the invasive ductal carcinoma and only left traces of ductal carcinoma. I had no lymph node involvement, I had no genetic markers, and I started with an ER/PR number, though low. I was expecting a low number, maybe 4.
My doctor pulled out the paperwork and placed it in front of me. I don’t remember what she said. All I could comprehend was the number that was inside a giant circle. 34. Thirty-four. I started to skim the rest of the page and fell to the bottom, right as the doctor explained that I was not ER/PR positive. I was triple negative. My throat was tight, and I barely got out the question, “I’m triple negative?”
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) accounts for about 10-15% of all breast cancers. The term triple-negative breast cancer refers to the fact that the cancer cells don’t have estrogen or progesterone receptors (ER or PR) and also don’t make any or too much of the protein called HER2. (The cells test “negative” on all 3 tests.) These cancers tend to be more common in women younger than age 40, who are Black, or who have a BRCA1 mutation.
TNBC differs from other types of invasive breast cancer in that it tends to grow and spread faster, has fewer treatment options, and tends to have a worse prognosis (outlook). [Source]
I am devastated. I am angry, and I am sad. This wasn’t the result we were waiting for. We were waiting to hear how hormone therapy would get me through the next 5-15 years, go through menopause, deal with the complications, and live my life. We were planning on scheduling my exchange surgery with the plastic surgeon. We were ready to get started. I was supposed to go to Berlin, Spain, and Washington DC. Now. Now? Now I sit in a coffee shop with two fresh stitched incisions where they implanted a port-cath to run chemo through it. Now I have appointments to educate me and the family on what will happen during chemotherapy. Now, I am waiting for July 31, my first round of chemo.
Everyone keeps telling me that it will be over before I know it. Once every 3 weeks for 12 weeks total. Here is the problem with that. We don’t get to live in weeks or months. We live in days. Minutes. Seconds. 12 weeks is forever and never.
Things I hold onto is that we caught the cancer early. I am considered a low-risk TNBC. The chances of a random cancer cell sitting somewhere else in my body are slim to none. The chemo is preventative. It is only 12 weeks. After that, I wait a month and can get the exchange of my expanders to implants. 12 weeks is forever.