Triple Negative Breast Cancer: What treatments are you having?

Hi @myoga - sorry to hear you’re still feeling pain from the BMX and the hematoma. 🙁 Do you need more surgery for the hematoma? Wishing good vibes and healing!

You’re so nice to ask about my swap out. I’m 2 weeks past surgery. My surgeon took out my tissue expanders, put in the implants and fat grafted my stomach to fill in around the implants to give a smooth appearance. (I have a lot of new found respect for anyone that endures any kind of liposuction; it’s hard!)

I have to wear compression garments (think spanx) for 6 weeks and only remove them during a shower. I really do not like this part of it.

I prepared a lot by finding other patients who had this exact reconstruction. So I knew what I was getting into.

I haven’t had complications, so that’s good. I do have pain and fatigue. I wear loose fitting pjs and sleep in a recliner (which I did after my mastectomy).

I keep a journal, which helps me process my days and emotions. And I can track my progress. I’m not going anywhere except to post op appointments. Can’t lift anything over 10 pounds for 6 weeks, similar to the mastectomy recovery.

So, that’s pretty much where things are right now. The implants look good, bruising is improving a lot, and my stomach bruising is getting better. Still tender where she took fat from my hips and stomach.

I’m grateful she didn’t have to fat graft my legs. I ate a bunch of ice cream every night before surgery to gain belly fat - and it worked! I had enough for the doctor to use around the implants.

I’m happy to answer any other questions. Again, thx for thinking about me.

Didn’t realize you recently had a swap-out. How are you doing now? I admire you and others that have the courage to go through reconstruction! I’m still feeling pain and tender from BMX and hematoma. Wishing you a speedy recovery.

Hi @erikamilena. Sorry to hear of your diagnosis. I was diagnosed with a subtype of triple negative breast cancer on Sept 27, 2024. I had a bilateral mastectomy on October 23, 2024. I did not need chemo or radiation. I chose to have reconstruction, with tissue expanders inserted during my mastectomy surgery. I just went through surgery on March 5 to swap out tissue expanders for implants and also had fat grafting of my stomach to fill in around the breasts. Hope this info is helpful to you. Let me know if you have other questions about the process. ( I am 59. My cancer was LGASC stage 1b.)

Hi @erikamilena. Sorry to hear of your diagnosis. I was diagnosed with a subtype of triple negative breast cancer on Sept 27, 2024. I had a bilateral mastectomy on October 23, 2024. I did not need chemo or radiation. I chose to have reconstruction, with tissue expanders inserted during my mastectomy surgery. I just went through surgery on March 5 to swap out tissue expanders for implants and also had fat grafting of my stomach to fill in around the breasts. Hope this info is helpful to you. Let me know if you have other questions about the process. ( I am 59. My cancer was LGASC stage 1b.)

After doing a bit more research, I discovered a very helpful tool published (and available for public use) on the NHS web site (NHS is the UK's National Health Service - so highly reputable). My career was in software and systems with mathematics, I also reviewed the technical approach notes and believe the tool has been well-designed and is likely pretty solid. It may be somewhat weaker for TNBC because it represents a fairly small proportion of cases, so the data used to confirm the results might not be as solid (there could be some minor bias due to having just a little over 2,000 patients with TNBC for their confirmation data pool). So we shouldn't assume it is perfect. But it is likely fairly good at helping give some useful guidance.

This tool is used by UK doctors and patients to help understand treatment options and their relative benefits. It doesn't necessarily map directly for patients here, especially if they go directly into neo-adjuvant chemo before mastectomy. And not all treatment options are captured in this tool. So none of us should use it without consulting with a qualified cancer team. But it might help a bit to have this insight as we're considering options for treatment.

I also recently switched to a different cancer center (won't get into all of the reasons), but feel this center is far better at providing the kind of individualized and supportive care I need. And when I mentioned having looked at this NHS tool, the surgeon said their breast cancer team often uses it to help gain some clarity into relative benefits of different treatment options, and then to help inform their patients about those options.

Here's the link if you want to look at it. Caveat: It really is best if you are working with your provider to make sure you haven't missed or misunderstood some of the inputs. If you use it knowing you may not have those exactly right, and are willing to look at other possible inputs that might apply to your situation after all of the lab analysis is complete (post-mastectomy), then you can still use it as long as you realize it is giving you a general idea, not something solid/definitive.
https://breast.predict.nhs.uk

I think there's a difference between how aggressive a cancer is and its likelihood of recurrence. The article linked below gives some clarification. As with anything related to breast cancer, treatment options and plans are changing all the time as new tools become available or improved. So keep in mind that any statistics collected over time, say 10 years or so, can include data on earlier patients who had different more-limited treatment options vailable at the time. And might include patients whose cancer was found later than they are now since older women did not routinely have mammograms in the past.

Basically most newly-discovrered breast cancers today have better overall prognosis in general because of advances in treatment options. I like to stress this as it's both true and encouraging when considering 'statistics.'
https://www.verywellhealth.com/triple-negative-breast-cancer-prognosis-4778440

I was diagnosed TN in September 2021, had a double mastectomy the following month, and have not had regrets about my decision. At some point I may try some kind of minimal padded-bra type thing but so far I have not done anything like that nor felt the need. It takes a little while to adjust to the change in how my clothes fit; I was not shapely before the surgery, so most of the adaptation has just been in my own mind. I was 68 at the time of diagnosis, and I'm 71 now. I wanted to avoid multiple surgeries, and I like being able to know that everything I see and feel is actually my own body; I feel more aware of my own condition and health with nothing external in the way. The good thing about TN is avoiding so many complicated decisions and side-effects of the treatments for the positive-types of breast cancer. The negative thing is that there's a big empty space where you are on your own to stay distracted and avoid thinking of that higher chance of a return cancer in those first several years.
Frankly, I didn't want to do multiple breast surgeries of ANY kind, either multiple lumpectomies, mastectomies, or the multi-step, drawn out reconstruction processes I heard about. If my life is to be shortened by this disease--and I hope it's not--I want to spend as little of it as possible anticipating or recuperating from surgery. I'm sure you will be fine, and will be comfortable with your decision once you have settled on your own priorities going forward!!