My 35 year old sister found out earlier this year that she has Stage IV breast cancer (spread to one of the lymph nodes and into both of her lungs). I can't ex

My 35 year old sister found out earlier this year that she has Stage IV breast cancer (spread to one of the lymph nodes and into both of her lungs). I can't express how fortunate we've been that she has responded extremely well to tamoxifen therapy, which seems to have halted growth (and even resulted in some shrinkage) for almost 11 months now. Hers is apparently not a common result. In spite of the frightening diagnosis, she has stayed very active all these months and has suffered almost no ill effects from the treatment (a few pills each day). As some people have pointed out, the long term prospects aren't good for advanced stages of breast cancer, but last January, the surgical specialist who examined my sister didn't give her more than a year to live. Thankfully we met a spectacular oncologist who has been as much terrific support network as he has been a doctor. It's worth reading Stephen Jay Gould's great essay on his fight with cancer: "The Median is not the Message" http://cancerguide.org/median_not_msg.html http://cancerguide.org/median_not_msg.html He was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma (a cancer of the abdominal lining) and told that the median survival rate for it was 8 months. He researched his cancer and decided he would do whatever was necessary to get on the good side of the median. He was treated with chemo, radiation and surgery, and ended up surviving 20 years (eventually dying from an unrelated metastatic cancer). I really wish Xeni the best of luck and hope things go well.