The type of cancer I had is an uncommon type to find in the breast. The pathology report gave the name and type of it, which led me on a grand quest to learn all I could about this cancer and what I could do about it. I had not scheduled my surgery yet and I wanted to know what type of treatments were effective, what outcome I might expect, and if there were any new therapies on the horizon. With the name and type, I was able to find plenty of information about it. What I found was troubling.

Only one national study could be found with women who had this type of cancer in their breasts. It included 36 women who were followed for 10 years. The study described the different treatments that were given and the results of each. Neither chemo nor radiation had any positive effect, and in fact chemo made things worse. (My own genomics test following my surgery confirmed that neither were recommended.)

Of these 36 women, the first one died at the 9-month post-diagnosis mark. At the two-year mark, most were gone. At the 3-year mark, only one woman was still alive. That woman was still alive at the end of the 10-year study.
My question was why? Why did the one woman survive and the others didn't? What was it about this cancer that made treatments ineffective? I became quite proficient in my research to find everything I could learn to help myself.

After my surgery, they said I was a Stage III-A , which of course is dictated by how many tumors are found, how large they are, whether it has spread to other areas, whether lymph nodes are involved, etc.
Simple research on women with a Stage III-A diagnosis (not even considering the rare strain of cancer I had) showed that many women do not make it to the 2-year mark. Then, the next hurdle is making it to the 5-year mark. After 5 years, the odds of breast cancer death for a 'generic' Stage III-A go to 50%.

So, for me, it is a triumph that I have passed the 2-year mark and am still currently cancer-free.