I was 1A (stage), 11 mm. tumor, no lymph node involvement, good margins. I was 76 at the time. I was scheduled for 33 radiation treatments at Trinity Unity Point Hospital in Moline, Illinois. I was tattooed for my treatments, etc., and---somewhat late in the game---I decided to go to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City and get a second opinion on everything that had been done to that point. The oncologist there said, "If you had had your surgery here, we would not have radiated you at all." When I asked why, he said, "Because you're a woman in your 70s." I was not sure WHAT to do after that, but I went back to the Quad Cities and spoke with the radiologist who had discovered the tumor on Pearl Harbor Day of 2021. She was no longer even part of my team, as she works in Davenport, Iowa at the Genesis facility there that used to be called St. Luke's Hospital (Genesis East?) She called me 3 times and we talked the pros and cons of the 33 radiation sessions I had already been prepped for and I ended up driving myself to all 33 of them. About halfway through I was sent home a couple of times because my skin was a bit tender and red, but it was not really bad. I had decided to stay on the Illinois side of the river because it was going to be an almost daily occurrence and Trinity Hospital is only about 10 minutes from my house, whereas I would have had to cross the I-74 bridge into Iowa and drive for about half an hour to go to old St. Luke's. So, the radiation was not bad, but putting me on Anastrozole (Feb. 1, 2022) was horrible. It ended up crippling me and I couldn't tolerate Tamoxifen, either, despite trying hard for over a year. After it left me unable to walk (knee blew out) I went off everything for 9 months (and later tried Tamoxifen for 5 months). My Texas doctor is very glad that I went through the 33 radiation treatments because I am one of the 10 or 12% of patients who cannot adjust to/tolerate the adjuvant therapy pills. (I heard that Katie Couric is thinking about doing an 'expose" about how bad they are---now that she knows firsthand.) I am now insisting on having an MRI rather than just a 3D Mammogram because I had been being "called back" for "dense breasts" since 2018 before my diagnosis (in fact, I had 3 stereotactic biopsies.) Every woman who has dense breasts should read the stories on this website.
https://mydensitymatters.org/programs/my-story-matters/