Breast Cancer Treatment and Recovery Timeline: What to Expect from Start to Finish

You might first notice a lump or other breast changes during a routine self exam and report it to your doctor. Or a mammogram screening might spot a tumor – a mass of abnormal tissue – sooner than you can feel it yourself. Your doctor will schedule a diagnostic mammogram, which is a more detailed X-ray. Sometimes they’ll order more imaging, such as an ultrasound of your breast. 

Your diagnostic test results likely will be ready while you’re at your follow-up appointment. You’ll get a letter, too. Your doctor might order an MRI if you have dense breast tissue or other imaging results aren’t clear. If the tests show that the mass is solid, your radiologist may recommend a biopsy, in which small bits of breast tissue are removed and examined under a microscope.

A pathologist – a doctor trained in making diagnoses – will study the tissue samples taken during your biopsy. They’ll make a report of their findings and share them with your doctors. It’ll show whether your breasts have cancer cells. Your pathology report might be ready in two or three days, but sometimes it can take a week or longer.

If you’ve gotten a breast cancer diagnosis, you likely still have time to ask another specialist or medical team for a second opinion, if you wish. They might:

• Confirm your first doctor’s diagnosis and plan
• Give more details about the type and stage of your breast cancer
• Suggest additional treatment options you hadn’t considered
• Recommend a different course of action

Most types of breast cancer require surgery to remove it. You might have a lumpectomy, which removes part of your breast, or a mastectomy, which removes the entire breast. Most research agrees it's best to schedule surgery before eight weeks after diagnosis (56 days or less).

Your upper body might feel sore for a few weeks after surgery. You’ll be offered painkillers and given daily exercises to loosen up your arms and shoulders. You might have fatigue. You'll likely get your stamina back and return to normal activities after about a month.

Your doctor might recommend radiation therapy to cut down the risk of breast cancer returning after you have surgery. If you’re having chemo, radiation therapy usually starts three to four weeks after chemo treatments end. However, radiation therapy can be used at any stage of breast cancer treatment.

Chemotherapy is often combined with other breast cancer treatments. You might receive it after surgery to get rid of remaining cancer cells and cut down the risk of the cancer coming back. Sometimes chemo is used to reduce larger cancers before surgery. 

Targeted therapy uses meds to kill or halt growth of certain proteins on breast cancer cells. It’s usually used in combo with chemotherapy to treat metastatic, or later-stage, breast cancer.

Hormone therapy is a common treatment after surgery to help cut the risk of the cancer returning. Sometimes it’s given before surgery. Hormone therapy usually continues for at least five years.

Rehabilitation care offers support all along the breast cancer treatment timeline: during breast cancer treatment, as you’re recovering, and into remission and beyond. The rehabilitation care team can ID and help manage pain, address side effects from treatment, treat mental fog that’s common after treatment, and much more.

The lifestyle choices that have always kept you healthiest will also boost your well-being post-treatment. Living well also will lessen the risk of the cancer returning. The usual healthy habits apply: eat a well-balanced diet, aim to stay at the right weight for your body size and type, be active, and find wholesome ways to manage stress. 

After you finish treatment, it’s key to go to all of your follow-up appointments and stay on top of prescribed protocols such as regular mammograms. (If you have hormone treatment, you’ll need regular pelvic exams and bone density tests.) If symptoms return, your doctor will want to run diagnostic and imaging tests and maybe do a biopsy. 

Ask your doctor to compile a survivorship care plan for you. This will include: 

• A summary of your breast cancer diagnosis, all testing done, and treatments you had
• A list of possible long-term side effects and what to do about them
• Lifestyle suggestions with specifics about diet and exercise
• A schedule of follow-up appointments and exams and screenings

Everyone’s journey is not the same. Life going forward can mean being in remission, having longer-term treatments, or living with later-stage breast cancer. You might go through body changes, have later side effects, or still feel emotions from your experience or different aspects of treatment. But you can look forward to new treatments and approaches that continually improve and offer even greater hope.