@A MyBCTeam Member I also choose lumpectomy before I knew I was stage 4 at diagnosis. I wouldn't change my decision.

Everything moved so fast. A day after the biopsy came back cancerous even before the biopsy could feel better I and my family were with the surgeon discussing my choices, Including reconstruction at time of removal of lump. We would have been there sooner but my husband was on a business trip in the area were my mom lived about 2 hounded miles away. I got the news just before leaving work alone at my desk. Then I had to make hard phone calls to bring them to me. After our meeting with the surgeon i was sent for every test imaginable. All that were never done, like mammogram & MRI. Along with labs, chest X-ray and all the normal surgical prep. Within 3 days from diagnosis I was in surgery. I was then sent to the oncologist shortly after drain was removed. A fast timeline for sure. So many choices to make and options to weigh. Things I asked myself were, healing, time out for work-I had no disability, pain, infection risk for the reconstruction vs lumpectomy, and could I live without nipples. Later in the oncologist office I found out the news of the stage 4. It was then I had to face having chemo without having time to harvest my eggs for children. At this time I was 36. I was 34 when we finally made the decision to have kids. We got married Aug. 2006. I was settling into a great new job and so was my husband. He was still being trained, we bought our first new home. Life was changing. With the biggest decisions in my life being made at the time I am proud of myself for making the right decisions for myself and accepting my decisions to rapidly advance with chemo knowing I may never have the chance to have my own children. When my cycle never returned I mourned the children I wasn't going to have. Again I still wouldn't change my choices I made even under different circumstances. 2007 will always be rembered fondly. It was the year I found out what I was made of.

I have definitely learnt not to read things off the internet or look at stats, here is hope out there!!!

@Suziqt57 - Throw a party instead. Just don't be fooled that no one here has never thrown their own pity party. I have. I have shed many tears quietly in my own time. I have shouted at the top of my lungs. I have screamed in my car alone with the windows rolled up in traffic. I have belted out songs on the radio that were so sad my singing made them even more sad. I have clinched my fists and my jaw simultaneously crying for myself on the inside while wanting to just punch something real hard. It's all okay. These are my ways I have seen my self cope, after which I give myself time to live. Jimmy Valvano said, to laugh think and cry is one hell of a day.

@A MyBCTeam Member - I was surprised too and, like you, I'm very hopeful! My oncologist pulled me aside one day and said not to read anything on the internet or the old statistics - he said new discoveries are being made every day and he's very encouraged too!!

let God turn around all these stage 4's w/mets. You will get through this.. plenty have. be strong and know you are loved. your, Sister.