It's going well

Hi Everyone, man has this month flown by! I try to keep up on posts, but life does get busy! In the last three weeks I've been to three weddings and Doug bought a house! And now I'm trying to organize a garage sale...the fun never ends!

So far treatment is going well. Turns out I never had low platelets in the first place (thank goodness); it was somebody else's labs that found their way into my file. But I have three people who sign my labs and such beforehand, so it was all good on my end. I just had another Taxol a few days ago, and the little connection between the IV bad and the IV tubes came undone and there was Taxol spraying all around the room. After cleanup and a change of clothes, I was back in the chair with treatment. So it's been interesting getting Taxol!

My treatment of Taxol consists of several predrugs: decadron, benadryl, tagament and zofran. Then I sit for three hours receiving the infusion of Taxol. Yet, the benadryl makes me pretty sleepy, so I usually am out the whole time. Nothing real exciting. Although, even though I have hair growing on my head, the hair on the rest of my body is completely gone. No more eyebrows or eyelashes and I haven't had to shave my legs in weeks! The Neulasta pain is better and now only lasts a day; and then I just have sore legs for a few days. I have no feeling in a couple of my fingers, but it's pretty manageable because I soon forget it's there. So all in all, Taxol is much better than the previous chemo of adriamycin and cytoxan.

I saw the radiation oncologist last Wednesday, a very nice guy! He basically said that I have a 20-25% chance of recurrence locally or regionally (along the scar line and nearby lymph nodes) and that radiation would take that down to 2-3%! So the obvious choice is radiation! That will start the week of September 25th and goes for six weeks. It is every day and only takes about 20 minutes to do. So it'll be a little annoying, but very worth it. I'll fill you in on more drugs I get to take and the side effects when the time gets nearer to those appointments.

I don't think I ever laid down my stats, which I received a long time ago. So I will bring them up here, since I mentioned them a little bit with the radiation. We'll start with the big one, mortality:

No treatment (besides surgery): 39.7% chance of being alive in 10 years
Chemotherapy treatment: 66.2% chance of being alive in 10 years
Hormone treatment: 53.6% chance of being alive in 10 years
Chemotherapy and Hormone treatment: 75.2% chance of being alive in 10 years

Now you see why I'll be doing chemotherapy and hormone treatment! Remember I'm on the most aggressive chemotherapy regimen and the preliminary stats for three year survival rates are 90%! I'll also be on the most aggressive hormone treatment too, for five years. It'll consist of Lupron shots and Arimidex--shown to even be more effective than Tamoxifen. Now here are the recurrence (relapse) stats:

No treatment (besides surgery): 82.8% chance of recurrence in 10 years
Chemotherapy treatment: 50.4% chance of recurrence in 10 years
Hormone treatment: 64.5% chance of recurrence in 10 years
Chemotherapy and Hormone treatment: 34.7% chance of recurrence in 10 years

Now the 34.7% includes local, regional and distant recurrence. Local includes the scar line and chest wall; regional is nearby to those things, like the surrounding lymph nodes; and distant is metastatic cancer, includes structures like the liver, lungs and bones. Radiation says that 20-25% of that is local and regional risk and can reduce it to 2-3%. So we're looking at net recurrence at: 11.7-17.7%!

For the most part, these are good numbers compared to other cancers. So much is advancing with breast cancer that even if there is metastatic disease, the drugs prolong life for another 10 to 20 years. Who knows what great things the future will bring!

I also want to give a shout out to James and his friends for walking the 3 Day a couple weekends ago. They raised over $16,000 for breast cancer research! I am truly amazed and touched by their efforts!! Check out James' profile for pictures and details.

I just want to thank everyone for their comments and support--much appreciated here! On a more personal note:

Emily-unfortunately I don't receive treatments of U of M, I'm at the Sparrow Cancer Center in Lansing. Although, if I did, I would definitely call you up! I haven't seen you in such a long while--we'll have to get together sometime though. Thanks for the compliments too! :)

Tae-thanks for compliments and the family vacation was fun! Call me sometime and we can catch up too!

Long Time No Post...

Hi Everyone, sorry for the delay in posting! A lot has happened since reaching the halfway point! For starters my genetic testing came back with "No Mutations Found!" So I do not have the BRCA1 or 2 genes, which are the most common genetic mutations. But, that is all they looked for. So I'm having another genetic test for PTEN (Cowdens Syndrome), which basically is when someone is predisposed to certain types of cancers and has high chances of having them at a younger age. So hopefully that will come back negative too *fingers crossed*.

So in my couple week break between chemos my nausea disappeared and my mouth sores finally healed! Yay! I also have been sprouting little feathery wisps of white hair on my head--it's odd, but at least it's something! I also have a little darker patch of hair growing too--so yes my head is a funny sight to see! Food does taste better now, and I've gained five pounds because of it--so I better watch it.

I started the new chemo regimen (Taxol) on July 6th, and I get treatments every two weeks for twelve weeks. I'll be done on September 14th! So far Taxol is not that bad. Basically I just get numbness and tingling in my fingers and feet, more annoying than anything. Although, I do get Neulasta shots, one twenty four hours after chemo, and boy does that cause a lot of pain! It gives me all over body soreness (like after finishing a marathon--and believe me I know how that feels!), and then it becomes intense bone pain a day later that lasts for a few days. Let's just say I take Vicodin to get the edge off! But it is sooo nice to have a break every other week and only deal with one shot instead of them everyday.

When I started Taxol my WBC was really really low, but Neulasta has helped build them big time, and my Hemoglobin has come back too (and now I don't need anymore Aranesp shots)! Yet, my platelets right now are really low, and if they drop any lower I'll have to have a blood transfusion--hopefully it won't go that far. We'll see how this weeks labs look. Too bad they don't have a shot to help with platelets!

July was a hard month emotionally though. I was supposed to get married on the 15th and start medical school on the 31st. I just hope cancer doesn't take anything more away from me. I cannot wait to get back to a more normal life.

As for August, I will be meeting with a radiation oncologist on the 16th to determine if I need radiation or not. I have a feeling I will though, because I am so borderline. They say you have to have radiation if your tumor is 5cm or bigger and if you have 4 or more lymph nodes involved. Well my tumor was 4.2cm and I had 3 lymph nodes positive. I think I'll go for radiation just in case. My goal is no regrets!

I also wanted to thank everyone for the lovely comments they've left me! I really appreciate them!

Also for those of you interested, there is a new published study out that is specifically about young people with cancer (15-29 years) and there is a section on breast cancer. It shows how rare it is for my age group. A little over a 100 girls between 20-24 get it across the nation! Here is the link to the section on breast cancer: Breast Cancer in Young Women. Here is the link to the rest of the article.