My mother had her diagnosis at her cancer institute today. As there's still a pandemic and health concerns only she could go in and we had to wait outside. They have reviewed her scans and xrays from her hospital she was at and her doctors don't believe it has spread anywhere else. Of course she will have her routine check ups, but in my head I had imagined they were going to do a large series of tests which doesn't seem to be the case/need to occur (yet).  As the cancerous tumor was on her heart and tumors on hearts are hard to completely remove due to surgeon time frame/time, full removal/clear margins are hard to achieve just by surgery. They decided that once she recovers more from her open heart surgery in about a month she will begin radiation, which doesn't sound too serious/terrible.   I'm struggling still believing this/letting my guard down, as I don't know if this is too good to be true, or maybe this cancer is just different entirely from what I read. We have been through quite a bit as others have in the last month with my mother's health. All I know is that her cancer rare, rare, rare. (Sarcoma = rare, Cardiac sarcoma = rare x2).   My mother hates spreading sadness and knows how much we've been through this past month with her health which she feels bad for as she was in a coma for the majority of it and wasn't mentally effected like we were, and although my mother has said several times after her appointment with her cancer treatment, that she is telling us absolutely everything from her diagnosis (as we weren't there to listen to it) and it's very hard for me to believe that her diagnosis was as good as it was...I just feel like it's too good to be true as the highlights overall were that the cancer hasn't spread, and my mom told us they didn't/couldn't give an estimated time and that they basically said "we don't even know how long we will live for, your cancer could come back, it could not, you could live to 100 for all we know". from what I read, it comes back so often, and people usually don't stay alive for longer than 6-12 months after diagnosis, in her case it just sounds like they removed the majority of it, and it's a waiting game, but it may or may not come back. If it does come back which no one can predict, it sounds extremely terrifying to me. I just feel like I personally don't have all the answers that I want and hoped for as we waited for this diagnosis for two weeks now as she's been healing, as selfish as I sound as the rest of my family is satisfied with her diagnosis. I know cancer is terrible, random, and can't be predicted. It definitely sounds like her doctors/team have a backup plan too if the radiation doesn't help remove the little cells that are left. I continue to read & read and keep finding from my research that this cancer is very aggressive and comes back, from the data that is shared online it seems like almost 65-70% of the time it comes back, which just sounds scary. I know this probably sounds wishy washy/not black and white and if you maybe have any advice personally I'd appreciate it. Overall, we all feel great about her diagnosis. She had a tumor that almost killed her and was removed, shes recovering very well, she's basically herself again, they mentioned she may have to have another operation last week but her diagnosis/cancer doctors basically said that isn't going to be needed and that targeted radiation should work.   Thank you to whomever takes the time to read this, and I greatly appreciate the replies I've received as they have helped tremendously throughout this experience. Another thing her doctor recommended is to stay off google, which I find nearly impossible as I don't have all my answers I feel like I need/want, but I suppose that's half of the fight with any cancer.  ... View more

Such great advice to hear, I will do as you say and treat each step one by one. I can tell that the researching isn't great as some days I feel good from it and others I feel bad from the research/statistics. It's very inconsistent but I shouldn't push for information until I receive it properly. I'm a worrier and I overthink quite a bit, which doesn't help at all. Thank you very much for the replies.  ... View more

She's very fortunate to be going to a great facility in our country as we are in New England. She's also not too old as she's younger than 60. It's very scary as I can't stop researching recurrence, death rate, types of tumors/grades, where the cancer can spread. She is doing her testing within the next week to see if it's spread but as of right now it appears it hasn't from her former scans. It's just such a rare cancer that it seems like the majority of research/statistics don't look good. As in, it seems like this cancer always comes back and the 5 year rate doesn't look great considering that as of right now the only tumor they found was in fact on her heart...which definitely seems pretty scary. It was also a bit over 5cm which from what I've researched seems to have a high rate of spreading by then. I'm so sorry for everything that you went through and have such an appreciation now after just dipping my toes in the water so far as to how hard this can be for many people. ... View more

Hi iloveyoudearly7, Thank you for sharing this with me. I can't imagine what you went through but I believe your mother is in a better place now. Thank you for sharing that & that is definitely a true statement. What's most scary I believe with sarcoma is that it being an already "rare" cancer, it's even more rare as my mother has cardiac sarcoma so it's a rare type of already rare cancer. We find out within the next week how far it's spread (if it has) but from what I'm reading/hearing it's aggressive. ... View more