Posted on 08/31/2008 11:54:45 AM PDT by neverdem
LIZETTE IRVIN, HEAVILY PREGNANT, reclined on a hospital bed, relaxed, considering the circumstances. A bag of fluid dripped into her blood through an IV line as Irvin sucked on ice cubes, trying to pass the time. The ice helped to minimize the metallic taste and heat in her mouth from 5-fluorouracil, an antimetabolite, which entered her bloodstream via a catheter inserted in her chest. It was June 16, Irvin’s fourth round of chemotherapy. She was 32 weeks pregnant and had breast cancer.
Before she left the chemo suite at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Irvin, who is 36 years old, was hooked up to a portable pump that slowly released doxorubicin — “the red devil,” a drug so toxic it can cause third-degree burns — into her body over the next 72 hours. During that time, her daughters, Madeline, 4, and Noelle, 2, stayed at her in-laws in part because Irvin feared that Noelle, “the clingy one,” might accidentally tear out her IV.
It was Noelle’s clambering on her mother that first alerted Irvin to a tender lump in her left breast last November. Irvin nearly called off her mammogram appointment when a home pregnancy test showed up positive in December. Because pregnant women typically experience enlargement and tenderness of their breasts, they often ignore early signs of cancer. Unfortunately, this means pregnant women learn of their breast cancer 2 to 15 months later than nonpregnant women and are two and a half times more likely to be told they have advanced-stage cancer. (Irvin’s cancer was Stage IIB; she had three small tumors in one breast and the cancer had begun spreading to her lymph nodes.) Doctors are discovering more and more breast cancers at Stage 0 and I in nonpregnant women, but as one oncologist, Dr...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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I was always under the assumption that cancerous lumps were painless.
Me too...I’ve always taken comfort in that.
My boobs get painful and lumpy around that time of the month. The fishoil and evening primrose oil help. I’m guessing that lumps in the advanced state aren’t all painless.
doxorubicin — “the red devil,” a drug so toxic it can cause third-degree burns
** Can only imagine what it’s doing to healthy cells inside :(
My mom had breast cancer and there was absolutely no pain involved before they found it.
Nope. My mom's hurt pretty bad.
Maybe what hurts is the mets to other tissue :( Perhaps what was really felt was something not cancer but there were cancerous lumps with it. I always heard that breast ca is painless which is counterintuitive. Article is sad.
One of my best friends died after battling cancer for five years, because her doctor assumed the same thing. It was almost a year after noticing the lump, that the docs started treating her for breast cancer, when they finally discovered it after a mammogram.
So ladies, if the doc blows you off after you've found a painful lump, find another doctor!
Not all are painless. Actually I wouldn't call it painful just tender. If it's a hard irregular nodule it could be serious. A soft uniform nodule is more than likely okay. I would have ANY nodule checked by my doctor though.
I have had the 'red devil' running through my veins (port in my chest). I wasn't pregnant though.
Killing them too.
Maybe it has something to do with location and infiltration into the tissues. My co-workers twenty- something daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer after their dog jumped on her. It was the pain that alerted her. She is currently being treated.
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