[Lani]

GO TO THIS LINK AND CLICK ON THE AUDIO INTERVIEW WITH DR. JULIANNE SMITH OF PALM SPRINGS. She is an oncologist who had breast cancer herself and had chemo and herceptin and continues to practice while on oxygen due to congestive heart failure. She had lymphoma in childhood, so the radiation therapy from back then, plus chemo, plus herceptin were too much for her heart. She is empathetic and knows what it is to go through chemo, having gone through it herself. I have met her and she is just the type of person you could talk to/with who could provide an opinion based on her knowledge as an oncologist and her knowledge having been on the receiving side of the treatment. Any information she could provide you with would be doubly useful as it would come from someone who had "been there" and that might calm you. I don't know if she is still on oxygen, what has happened to her since 2005, but she was very easy to talk to (I sat next to her at a luncheon at a conference)

TCH is much easier on the heart than Adriamycin and other anthracyclines were, so you are lucky the trend is now to TCH.

Click on her interview and don't be scared--as others have said TCH is easier than AC from their experiences and her situation was truly unique (history of childhood cancer, radiation, etc)

I am sure now that more time has passed and herceptin has been approved (she got it off-label) she has more to say!

Hope this helps