I had a somewhat similar situation recurrence to my skin and to my chest wall. One surgeon wanted to operate on me, the others on the tumor board recommended medication and watching and waiting. I went with the very radical and invasive surgery. That was about 18 years ago. I have had recurrences in lymph nodes and surrounding areas that were either radiated again, using CyberKnife or removed from under my arm with surgery. The surgery left me with a great amount of scar tissue and tightening of my skin and underlying muscles, I’ve had both breasts removed. However no matter how difficult it is I am still alive and credit that one surgeon who recommended the surgery with saving my life. I am currently on Ibrance and Aromasin which both have side effects too. All of us have unfortunately, live with the side effects of the surgery, chemo, radiation or medication’s that are keeping us alive but quality of life some days is difficult.

@debcor I'm finally getting back to this question/comment I posted long ago. I have been put on Anastrozole, followed by Letrozole since it affected my blood pressure which was moderately high to start with; both ended up affecting my BP way too much & they gave me "Labile Hypertension," where it jumps way high & way low over the course of a day, a scary situation. I'm on 2 more BP drugs. These drugs I don't believe are for anyone with cardiovascular problems. Then I was switched to Fulvestrant shots for 4 months, but had to go off because of side effects like severe joint & muscle pain & a leg rash. BUT, the breast MRI after these in May showed great shrinkage of the tumor in the chest wall, by 2/3! So now I'm on Tamoxifen & cutting it down to 5mg because of joint pains again. I really want my oncologist to help me get an appointment with some kind of pinpoint radiation person to see if they can do something to get the rest, since normal external radiation is out.
Can you share what you learned from the special surgeon and how you're now doing? Any news since last March? Hope you've gotten some helpful treatments. Hugs!

@debcor Hi again, I'm wondering what you and your surgeon decided to do about the recurrence in your rib area? I have an appointment soon with the Proton Radiologist to see if I'm a candidate for that. Hope things have turned out well for you.

@debcor Can you give any updates on whether you had surgery for your chest wall BC? My understanding is the only kind of surgery I could get would involve removing a rib(s?) to get at the tumor, and replacing with titanium...really invasive. My Doc says they don't do that at my Seattle Hospital. The weird thing is that this tumor "recurred" & grew to about 9mm (longish & skinny) under the ribs over a period of 30 years, without metastasizing. Amazing. It's now down to 7mm, but still there. The usual drugs are giving me lots of debilitating side effects. I'm 76 & feel like I've aged a lot in the last 3 years of treatment; not sure what to do. Might try verzenio, but no more AI's, SERD, or Tamoxifen. How are you doing?