[Hopeful]

Bonnie, that is exactly my point. If we are supposed to take the drugs continously without interruption to get the results they got in the trials, but the SE's are so severe that the oncs who prescribe them tell us NOT to take them for a while, it means that not everyone who fails to be 100% compliant with the regimen is doing so because they forgot to take the pill or because they decided on their own that the SE's or the cost was too much. It also says, IMO, that docs are sensitive to QOL issues when presented with a patient that is insistent that dimesion be attended to. I don't see how bringing someone into the doc's office so nurses can scare the beejeebers out of them with boogeyman tales about what happens to good little bc patients who don't take all their medicine, regardless of how bad it makes us feel, is the best way to go. We need to yell loud and long about how bad it makes us feel to as many people who will listen, most particularly the docs, or else nothing will ever be done to research ways to avoid or ameliorate SE's, much less do a better job of figuring out just who should be treated and who shouldn't. These drugs are about risk management, and that is what needs to be stressed to the patient, so the patient can make a decision about how to best manage her own risk and maintain her QOL.

Hopeful