Ductal Carcinoma (Breast Cancer)?

My Sister was diagnosed with Breast Cancer in November. It started off as a little lump in her left breast. She has gone through lots of Chemo and alternative drugs. She lost her left breast now and most of the pectoral muscle and roughly 23 lymph nodes as all were invaded. She is now being told that there are spots on her spine and in her other breast and some of those lymph nodes. There may be a spot or two as well on her liver. She does not want to know the prognosis as she doesn't want to think about it. She has a 4 yr old son and a 1 yr old daughter. I want to know the pronosis though. I want to be prepared so I can be strong for when my parents need me the most. Any information out there I would appreciate it. I have researched so much. By the way I am also doing the Making Strides 5 mile Breast Cancer walk in Philly in October, if anyone would like to make a small donation to that please let me know and I will send you the link. Take care and thank you.

There was abook published in 1994 called: STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT BREAST CANCER by Suzanne Braddock , et al = ISBN 1886039216. It gives every woman and family basic info.

What maybe you need is her permission to speak with her doctor and get her info directly.

If she named you for getting info about her in her HEPPA paper, you can get her TNM and staging. Talk to one of the nurses in the oncology doctor's office.
T-size of the tumor and this is expressed T(a number from 0-4)
N-(and a number 1-3) deals with cancer spread to lymphnodes near breast
M-followed by number 0-1 cancer spread to organs
Then the staging follows using Roman numerals for cancer stage zero through IV.

I wouldn't fret too much about your sister not wanting to know her prognosis. Doctors can be wrong. The best thing is to be there for your sister and family. Cook a meal, stop and pick up groceries, do some house cleaning for her, do a load of laundry...little things like this will help more than many people realize.

Too many times we say, call me if you need anything, but when I was going through treatment, the times when family and friends did little things meant so much!