@llthomson My doctor had recommended chemotherapy to shrink the tumor so that I could have breast conserving surgery. At the time, I didn't know that ILC doesn't respond as well. When I just asked for surgery first because I didn't want the tumor in me for 6 months during chemo, he said okay. That's the drawback, you keep the tumor inside, but on the flip side, you don't shrink it. Its' a quandry, what to do? My margins were not clear after the surgery, so the doc said to have adjuvant chemo and then a second surgery which cleared everything. Sometimes chemo works great with ILC and other times not so great. They still don't know and I think my doc just threw everything at the disease. I have found conflicting studies, but the most recent one I found is here.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40978052/

@llthomson It was a single mastectomy, I had 25 sessions of radiation and now I'm on Anastrozole plus Verzenio. I asked my doc if I should get a double mastectomy and he said, "No, You don't have it in the other breast". It made sense to me and so far all is well and I'm full of life!