[belle]

Hi,

My mom was diagnosed and had a rt. mastectomy in Feb. 2007. She had stage III bc, er+ pr+ HER2+ and was to receive a high-dose chemotherapy followed by Herceptin. However, she tolerated the first chemo (Epuribicin) very badly and the doctors decided to put her on Herceptin alone for 1 yr, radiation and femara.

Now we have recurrence on her left breast, left axillary lymphnodes, supraclavicular nodes and in pleura. We met with her Dr last week and discussed the treatment plan. Biopsy results showed that her tumor is the same as it was in 2007, i.e. hormone positive and her2 positive.

Since there are mets in her lung pleura, they say it is of no use to operate her left breast now and we will start with chemo (Taxol)+Herceptin. They say Herceptin seems to have benefited mom the first time as it kept her healthy with no recurrence longer than they expected. In 2007 mom's primary tumor was 9cm, 53 out of 59 removed lymphnodes were cancerous.

We will start with taxol this Wednesday and after checking mom's heart Herceptin will be added to taxol. Taxol+Herceptin will be taken every 3 weeks and in 3 months scans will be made to see how the treatment worked.

I'm hoping this will be a good start, but yet afraid that it may not help. It's a bit disturbing to think that her left breast and axillary lymphnodes cannot be operated. Mom has been having shortness of breath, dry cough and wheezing for the last 3 weeks. Don't know if the chemo will relieve her symptoms or make them worse.

Would you please share your experience with Taxol? Everyone reacts differently but maybe it would be good to know the major side effects to expect and how to make them easier to deal with. We've been taking Maitake and milk thistle as food supplements and now are considering to continue them during chemo.


Thank you and with best wishes,
belle