Happy Titty Tuesday! We’ve been on a little bit of a hiatus over here at Fierce Tit while Belle, Bugg and I have been doing some summer traveling. But it’s resulted in great blog posts that you will see in coming weeks. Look for the “Redheads on the Road” series.
Today, I’m going to follow up on an earlier post, The Breast Cancer Index Test: My Experience. My results are in from the Breast Cancer Index Test (BCI) and I wouldn’t exactly say that I scored an A+. In fact, my scores have given me a lot to think about since I talked to my doctor last week.
As a reminder, the BCI is a test that is done on your original tumor if you had estrogen and progesterone receptor positive cancer. (ER+ and PR+). It only works for the breast cancers that feed on estrogen. And it only applies to women who are taking hormonal therapies to keep their cancer from spreading to other parts of their bodies.
For years, doctors have put women on these drugs for 5 years. Some women, but not all, benefit from 5 additional years of the drug. The test predicts this.
- A “Yes” or a “No.” (Kind of like a pregnancy test! But really not). “Yes” means that you might benefit from 5 more years of anti-estrogen therapy. (For me, this meant monthly Lupron shots to stop my period and a daily pill called an aromatase inhibitor). “No” means that you are not likely to benefit from 5 more years of anti-estrogen therapy.
- A percentage risk. This is the percentage chance that you have of your breast cancer recurring in a different part of your body. (Another way to say this is that it is the percentage chance that you will have metastatic cancer).
I actually had to wait 10 extra days to talk to my doctor about my results. First I was traveling, then she was traveling. When I finally had a chance to talk to her, here’s what she told me:
- I got a “No.”
- My percentage risk is 9%.
I had been anxious about the results of the test – it’s rare to hear anything so definitive about cancer treatment! But once I heard them, my heart fell a bit. “That’s not great,” I said to my doctor.
“No,” she agreed, “it’s not the best outcome. But you have to look at it like there’s a 91% chance that you won’t have a metastatic recurrence.”
Hm. That’s all you’ve got doc? Look at the glass as more than half full?
Let me explain: metastatic breast cancer, or MBC, is not curable. It can be treated, but it cannot be cured. So once you have it, you will have it for the rest of your life.
Which may only be a few years. 33% of MBC patients are still alive 5 years after diagnosis. For me, at 45, with two young girls at home, it’s a chilling number to see. This is why many women who have had breast cancer fear every little ache or pain is a recurrence of their cancer. It’s the gun to our heads that threatens the rest of our lives.
Thirty percent of women who are diagnosed with early stage breast cancer end up developing metastatic breast cancer at some point. So my 9% risk number has me wondering – am I going to be in that 30%?
I think about what my smart, well-educated, kind doctor said: think about the 91%, not the 9%. But the thing is, I’ve already lost the cancer lottery once. I’ve already been one of the 1 in 8. So it doesn’t seem at all farfetched to me that I could now end up being one of the 1 in 11.
All hope is not lost though. While it’s upsetting to hear that the medication that I’ve been on for many years cannot do anything else to help me decrease my risk, there is something exciting about not having to show up at the hospital for my monthly shot next month. Maybe there’s time to reverse the beating my bones have been taking from the lack of estrogen in my body. Maybe I’ll even get my period again. (I never thought I would be excited about that! But there’s something about it that would make me feel young and healthy again. I’d love to have that, if even just for a few years. I’ve been in artificially induced menopause for all of my 40s.)
Maybe I’ll get to go a year without reaching the out-of-pocket maximum on my insurance. Maybe I’ll even spend the hour that I used to be at the hospital every month getting a massage instead.
It’s scary to see numbers related to my cancer. Any risk number is still a risk number. Whether the number was 15%, 7%, or 2%, it would still be scary, because it’s a number that predicts the chance of my early death. Looking at the odds again, the average woman has a 1 in 8 chance of getting breast cancer. I have a 1 in 11 chance of getting metastatic breast cancer in the next three years.
But, looking at the numbers another way, my chance of death this year is 0.002187 according to the Social Security Administration. (Did you know that they forecast such things?! I didn’t!) And I’m expected to live 38 more years.
So, who should I listen to, the BCI, or the United States government? I’ll let you answer that. Also, if you have experience with the BCI, please share below. There’s actually very little information on the internet about this test, so it’s important for us to share our knowledge and experience.