Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Watch TNBC Special on the Discovery Channel
If you missed the Discovery Channel's special on TNBC that aired last week, you can watch a video here. This is Part 1; once you finish it, you will be directed to three other parts. Or, if you have the necessary software (iTunes will do), check out the podcast here. The 60-minute show will air again Saturday, October 30 and Saturday November 6, at 8 a.m.
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6 comments:
Before I watch it, will it make me feel hopeful and empowered or is it just more scary stats on how bad TNBC is? Just 6 months out of chemo and coming up on my year anniversary of diagnosis of stage 2 (2.1 cm) no lymph node involvement, I really need to hear positive stats.
I would also like to know if it another show filled with scary stats. I am tired of hearing about how bad TNBC is--we all know that and are living it. Does it have positive information in it?
For the previous two posts. I have TN, stage IIB and am coming up to my 2 year in December and I watched the program with my family. We all thought the Discovery channel did a good job protraying a realistic and hopeful picture of TN breast cancer. I hope when you view it, you come away with same thoughts.
Thanks, Kim. I agree that they did a good job, offering insight into evolving research and potential new therapies. A lot of the focus was on the wonderful women, which is really what this all ought to be about. That said, I don't think any of you should feel obliged to watch it. Sometimes the more we know, the better we feel. At other times, all this data overwhelms and depresses and frightens us. Even though I love information, I needed to take the summer off from all this because it was making me a little nuts. Or a lot nuts. So, if you are questioning whether it is healthy for you to see the show, it might not be the best thing for you to do right now. Give yourself a break. Watch a good old movie instead.
I recently read a statistic about early stage hormone positive breast cancer: 1/3 of those with early stage hormone positive breast cancer have a recurrence. Of these, 50% have a recurrence more than 5 years after diagnosis. Some of the information posted on this site (The study from Louisiana I believe) showed an approximately 70% 10 year survival (presumably disease free at 10 years) for people with tnbc through stage 3. Perhaps I am misguided, but looking at things longterm, it really isn't obvious to me that tnbc is so much worse prognostically than hormone positive. I also thought I read for early stage node negative tnbc, the 5 year disease free stats were not significantly different (if dose dense chemo is used) than for those with hormone positive breast cancer. Couple this with a better long term prognosis and it doesn't seem like tnbc is so much worse. I have been diagnosed with tnbc, and I know my opinion is probably unpopular among most women diagnosed with tnbc. I find the emphasis on tnbc's bad prognosis to be a bit overstated, probably to the detriment of people looking for real information about it. All breast cancer is bad. Her2+ is really the most aggressive in terms of spread (more so than 3-), but even some women with the low grade early stage hormone positive, her2- cancer experience recurrences.
More and more, researchers are discovering that TNBC is not one disease, but many. And the long-term survival, in several studies, is better than hormone-positive. It seems that if it is going to get highly aggressive, in most cases, it does so within the first three years. So we have much more to celebrate on our third-year anniversaries. And, yes, the focus on whether or not we can survive it is really detrimental to women's chances of recovery, I think. Most women do survive it! So plan on it!
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