Invasive Lobular Carcinoma

hi. Ive written before about my mom. She has ILC...Im sorry if i sound ignorant...this is the first dealings with Cancer our entire family has ever had. I guess we have been lucky. Now--we are bewildered and sleepless and trying to get through each day. My mom had a mastectomy on her left breast on the 15th. Almost a week ago. The surgeon came out and told us that he took lymph nodes as well, and we were to call on Monday ( yesterday) to find out what the pathologist found when examining the nodes.
He said cancer WAS found in the nodes. We asked how many, he said 10. He said they did get the entire tumor-didnt have to cut across it, and the tissue around it was cancer free. Can SOMEbody out there please tell me what this actually means? Of course, we know that having it in the nodes is NOT good--but ...exactly how BAD is that? What would she (we!) be facing next?
They have an appt with the surgeon in 2 days, to have the drains removed, and to go over in detail the results of the surgery.
ANY information is appreciated.

[PaulMD]

Hi.

I understand your concerns regarding this situation.  The first step is to stage the cancer.   And from what you have described, the presence of 10 positive nodes would qualify for an N3 nodal status which would put the overall cancer stage to stage IIIC (you can access the NCCN breast cancer staging and treatment here: http://www.nccn.org/professionals/physician_gls/PDF/breast.pdf ).

The cancer free tissues just means that the surgeon has done a good job in removing all the cancer laden tissues and this is indeed a good finding, but the impact on the staging is somewhat less considering the large number of positive nodes.

The next step is to plan additional treatments such as that of chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and if the cancer is hormone responsive (as can be tested through the ER/PR staining), hormonal treatment can be given as well.

After the drains are removed, then the healing process can proceed.  An oncologist referral will be next and here you will discuss all the treatment options I've mentioned above.

Regards.