Setback

[Beth]

Setbacks occur. Age 40 Dx 12/03 5cm invasive HER2+ ER+ lobular/ductile with 2 liver spots (4 & 3 cm) and 3 bone spots.
10 weeks Taxol/Herceptin CT scan clear. 20 weeks taken off chemo with weekly maintenance Herceptin.
This week (5 months later) CT scan revealed same liver nodes growing back, plus several new nodes in lungs, smallest 11 mm and largest 2 cm.
Back on Taxol/Herceptin adding Carboplatin to the mix today. Onc is making me do full 6 months this time, then adding Tamoxefin/Herceptin
as maintenance. I am looking forward to blasting this away once again!
Hopefully I will have a longer remission next time.

Hugs & warm wishes for continued good health to all,

Beth

[Steph N]

Dear Beth -
Know several women from age 38 to 72 who have the same problems with recurrence as you and are also a mixed bag of Her2 and hormone positive. In EACH case, when hormone suppressors are not used or gotten off of, the tumors come back within a few months. They have different docs and some have been treated 'gently' - and it becomes necessary to get out the big guns and use every bullet including hormone suppressors to stop and reduce the spread. Herceptin alone has not kept any of them from recurring and I hear about this as I DO stay NED on Herceptin alone and they want to know how I do that. I have to say that I am homone neg and that is the big difference.