r/TNBC

Hi all, I found a lump a year ago but I thought it went away until I felt it again a few months ago. I got my biopsy results today and it's TNBC.

I feel like I've doomed myself by not getting it checked out. I honestly thought it went away so I didn't pay any more attention to it. Is this a death sentence? I'm 33 and feel hopeless. Has anyone else waited a long time to get their lump checked?

Pathology came back at 11pm - pathologic complete response!

TBH, I’m so relieved but also - beginning to see “clean up” after cancer treatment as the next hurdle. Recovering from DMX, healing up the keytruda colitis, fixing my chipped tooth, etc.

Also, now I have recurrence to worry about. I don’t think this part stops ever, but I’m hoping it at least recedes.

And I’m so so grateful to this community.

Fuck cancer.

Good afternoon! I just started chemotherapy and I'm doing the Keynote 522. My doctor has stated he does not recommend any medical marijuana (I live in Florida and have a medical marijuana card). He said this is because there is not enough research as it relates to interactions with the Keytruda. I will follow doctor's orders but I have terrible anxiety and I know that gummies help me tremendously with that and also with an appetite, nausea etc. they have given me plenty of anti-nausea drugs so I am appreciative of that.

I'm curious if anyone else has experience with this and appreciate any insights.

One of the nurses said if she thinks it will help that I should use it sparingly but from time to time it should be fine. I just don't want to do anything that interferes with the effectiveness of this treatment!

8 more rounds of Taxol to go...I've done the surgeries, the Red devil, lost ALL my hair, regrown my hair, losing my hair again for the second time which is somehow worse, been bleeding on and off for over a month (chemo pause?), dealt with the setbacks and delays, infected port, port removal as it broke through the skin etc....

I'm so so over it. I want a normal life back thay doesn't involve appointments, chemo and feeling like a freak everytime I leave the house. I want to play with my 4 year old and do all the fun kid things with energy and good health

I'll still need to do radiation after.

And then? Follow up MRIs on these ol' dense breasts until they find something? Isn't recurrance meant to likely recur in the lungs, brain and bones?

Am I meant to finish this marathon and then spend the next 5 years feeling like I can't move on?

Sorry for the vent. I'm angry. Frustrated. Struggling to see the silver lining.

Hi TNBC survivors, I wanted to ask how many of you had residual cancer at surgery and no recurrence. I had 4mm remaining and no nodes involved (at any point), putting me at the low end of RCB II. I am finishing 6 months of Xeloda this month and the anxiety is starting to creep up. I would really benefit from stories of no recurrence in those who did not reach PCR after TNBC treatment. Thanks!

S3G3 TNBCer here:

ASK FOR EXTRA FLUIDS DURING CHEMO (Ok’d of course by your MO)

So, yesterday was infusion 3 of docetaxol, carboplatin, and infusion 2 of keytruda (juries out on wether or not keytruda is tryna kill me). Round 1 took out my liver.

Round two, MO skipped the keytruda, but I still begged for a bag of saline because I’d been having heart palpitations, muscle twitiches, and my urine had been dark regardless of being meticulous about hydration (Kidney function was stone cold normal on tests) but I managed to get an extra 500ml of NACL. If I could compare 1 and 2, it was night and day with how my body handled everything. I felt 1000% better with no keytruda and the 500ml extra hydration. No sore throat/mouth, no fevers, exhaustion cut by 50%. My taste buds were normal!!!!! No bloody noses. It was wild the difference I felt but chalked it up to skipping the keytruda.

Third time (yesterday), we restarted the keytruda but dropped the DC 20% and I asked for a full 1000ml bag.

Woke up today and I feel GREAT (well, still pukey and physically exhausted but salt water isn’t gonna fix that). Made my ER doc husband do some doctor research on it- turns out that it’s being used more and more as an adjuct during chemo and it doesn’t flush out the chemo (which I mused about before bed last night). Studies are showing it actually acts to protect many organs from the toxic effects of chemo across MANY different cancers (though it’s contraindicated with a few specific drugs- none that I’ve come across in my research into Breast Cancer).

I’m not talking about IV vitamin bags or the stuff you get at those IV med spa clinics- I’m talking about plain old fashioned saline water NaCl.

Here’s one link of many that shows how it protects the kidneys for those of us on the car-platin drugs. I hope this helps! https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10836314/#:\~:text=Prehydration%20was%20defined%20as%20hydration,NaCl%200.45%25%20as%20hydration%20fluid.&text=The%20European%20Society%20of%20Clinical,about%20the%20optimal%20hydration%20scheme.&text=A%20hydration%20scheme%20should%20consist,is%20shown%20in%20Table%201.

I finished treatment last July 2025. Recently I’m out in the sun and my face feels like it’s burning off. Also, any recommendations on sunscreen? Thanks!!

Hello,

We've been seeing oncologists for my aunt (69yo, TNBC, stage 1 but multicentric with tumor sizes: 2.3 cm and 1.2cm, no underarm lymph node involvment, treated with surgery then reduced chemo:weekly cycles of reduced taxol carboplatin, has diabetes).

One oncologist suggested to also give her adjuvant immunotherapy (pembrolizumab) after a full cycle of chemotherapy not the reduced one. All this after mastectomy without node involvment. She chose the reduced chemo though. I see pembro is common in neoadjuvant setting (when started before surgery not after).

Does anyone have a similar experience getting immunotherapy after already having surgery followed by chemotherapy in early stage TNBC? Any ideas, suggestions?

Are there any non-pCR success stories here?

I’m desperate for them today. 🥺 I keep finding one extreme or the other: pCR or worst case scenarios.

I just want to get through this and survive and raise my kids.

Clinical stage 2a. Pathology post adjuvant chemo showed 9mm residual disease in original tumor, DMX with clear margins by 4.3cm, no skin or node involvement. Low end of RCB II.

Doctor suggesting Xeloda, Keytruda and will learn about radiation in the coming days.

Help give me hope. Please.

Hey!

30yr old TNBC stage 2 grade 3 no lymph node involvement.

mass measures 2.4mm

I was originally diagnosed beginning of April and am scheduled to start Chemotherapy on May 15th.

my original start date was May 1st but it was pushed back for me to complete IVF treatments and do the egg retrieval.

recently I have noticed the lump appears larger (originally thought from the hormones but it hasn't changed since my egg retrieval which was done on Thursday last week) and now ive been feeling a decent amount of pain in my breast.

im not sure if this is normal, but im kind of nervous.

I had another biopsy done last Tuesday (may 2nd) to check another spot my original mri saw and its been pretty sore since my breast was squished in that grate for the mri guided biopsy..so maybe thats the problem?

maybe I'm just panicking a bit before my first chemo appointment...Who knows. but if anyone experienced this id love to know!

So, in a past life I was a graphic designer and even had a marketing company but I ended up completely burned out and hating people hahahah. HOWEVER- I’m thinking about starting up the graphic art piece again (privately) and making some designs that I’d offer for free so folks can use what they like for t-shirts, mugs, whatever on their own.

I’ve been thinking about TNBC because, duh. Having a teenage daughter- I realized breast cancer comes across as a little cliquey but in not necessarily bad way but also in necessary way (ie: sticking to our own when it comes to treatment, some side effects, etc..). But also cliquey in that there are the doom and gloomers, the toxic positives, the warrior queens, the social media types… I’ve also thought about the things people say to us that make us want to throat punch them. Kind of an anti-pink ribbon brigade.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I also feel like if we were all in breast cancer high school, the TNBCers would be the kids dressed all in black with mohawks and spiked jewelry smoking out back and flipping birds at the status quo (okay, that WAS me in high school, so I might just have a personal bias lol).

I would love some of your thoughts on the subject! Graphic design is something easy for me to do bc it doesn’t require a lot of moving around. I find my body to be unreasonably exhausted these days but my brain just keeps chugging along- so I want to keep it occupied AND do something that others might get a chuckle out of.

Disclaimer: I DO NOT want to create any kind of us vs them mentality, just funny winks at having TNBC in particular, but also some “f*ck your pink ribbons” that anyone dealing with any kind of breast cancer might want too.

Other ideas:

“I’ve always been difficult… #TNBC”

”Caution: AGGRESSIVE“ (like when people walking their dogs yell “NOT FRIENDLY!!!” hahaha

”Boobs are boring” for those of us going flat…

A t shirt with double skulls on the boob area… etc…

etc. etc. etc.

Like I said, this just might be me. I’ve always been a little nihilistic. So ZERO offense made toward anyone feeling any differently. I just hate the color pink. Fuck Cancer. Fuck TNBC in particular.

GIVE ME YOUR THOUGHTS! NO SUCH THING AS A BAD IDEA!!! xoxoxo Sara

Hey everybody, I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Amanda and I was diagnosed with I DC triple negative with node involvement on April 3. today is my second chemo and I’ve noticed I smell like a burger joint. What are we using for deodorant? That’s natural and safe gets rid of my Burger King smell 😂
And my second question is how is everyone doing today? I’m a little anxious, last week was really tough and I really don’t wanna go in today.

I start the Keynote 522 regimen tomorrow. Before and all through this "journey"(so far), I've eaten healthy, exercised, taken good care of myself, done all the preventative things, and kept a fairly positive attitude. But today I just don't want to. So I just had three brownies for lunch with a second cup of coffee, just in case I can't stand any of that tomorrow. I've done whatever prep I can in the house, my chemo bag is ready to go, and the port I just got on Tuesday is feeling better. Tomorrow I'll be back to taking meticulous care of my health, but I'm planning to do fuck all this afternoon, and maybe just have ice cream for supper. I always wondered what I'd do if I looked in a crystal ball and could see that there would be a big change coming. Would I write someting meaningful and pithy? Would I play my favorite music and sing and dance? Seems as though the answer is nope. Brownies, ice cream, and maybe a nap. Fuck cancer.

My sister was diagnosed with tnbc in 2022. In remission since January 2023. In March 2026 she got a positive Signatera test, although low 0.20, still positive. Scan does not show a tumor yet. Has anyone had this happen? What didbyou do going forward? She sees her oncologist next week and she is figuring she'll have to wait and see for a tumor before they begin any treatment.

Hi all, my mother was recently diagnosed with stage three triple negative, invasive lobular carcinoma. Her oncologist is having her start keynote-522 this week, with weekly infusions for the first 12 weeks and biweekly for another 8 weeks. She is not a candidate for surgery due to the size and the oncologist noted that they will not do any scans until after chemo is complete.

I am becoming a bit concerned because I’ve read online (r/breast cancer and anxious Googling) that ILC is not responsive to chemo and that the keynote 522 research focused primarily on those with TNBC IDC.

I wanted to reach out to the community here to ask if anyone has any success stories or insights as to how to best proceed. The oncologist assured us that my mom’s diagnosis is very treatable and very responsive to chemo, but what I’ve read online about lobular TNBC specifically contradicts this. In particular, I read about a study from 2023 that noted none of their patients with ILC TNBC responded to chemo and experienced aggressive spread throughout the body, which REALLY terrified me.

The oncologist assured me that this is the standard of care for TNBC and would be recommended if we reached out to MSK. Is a second opinion worth it? Are there any folks out there with TNBC ILC who could provide anything I should advocate for?

Thank you very much in advance for reading this and thank you for this community—I’ve been reading up every day to give my mom the best chance of survival. Thank you. 💗

Hi. I'm new here. My girlfriend was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer a couple months ago and just found out it is stage 4. She is very young, 20 years old, and it is hard to find information about how long she could live for after chemo and surgery. She has small nodules (2-4mm) on her lungs and some lymph node involvement. If there is anyone out there with similar story I would love to hear about it. I am very nervous about this since we are both young and have not had much time together. I am going to be with her however long the journey is, but I am curious as to what this journey will actually look like.

Another day, another hitch in the giddy up.

Cracked a crown on my back lower molar right at the gum line (I have genetically shit teeth). I’m 10000% positive my dentist will want to do an extraction. Thank GOD it doesn’t hurt, theres no inflammation, or signs of infection.

I’m still in active treatment on a 21 day cycle.

Has anyone had a dental issue during active treatment? What did your oncologists tell you to do?

I’m not willing to go through all of this just to have my tooth kill me hahahahah fucking fuckery I tell you.

hey guys my start date was going be May 11 but because my stupid tooth had to be fixed and I have to take antibiotics they are delaying me a week, I have 4 cm tumor was diagnosed April7 , but I have two or three lymph nodes involved anyone else has had a similar experience, a 41 day between diagnosis and treatment!? My MO gave my dentist the green light I have all the tests already done I am sure she seen them so I am just scared it spreads, Asking for any advice or anyone that has been in my boat?