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Old 06-26-2017, 09:45 PM   #12
StephN
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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Misty woods of WA State
Posts: 4,128
Re: Did you have surgery w/o doing chemo?

First thing to learn and keep in mind about cancer is that it is SNEAKY and hard to control. (You know this.) And HER2 positive tumors can spread like wildfire (as mind did), and there is nothing our immune systems can do at that stage. The cancer will have its way. This is how cancer kills - barges right through our immune systems.

Many of us here and on other support sites have used a variety of methods and means to stay among the living. Most of us have needed more than one way to fight, and hopefully rid, our bodies of the cancer scourge.

I am not a doctor, but you will see by my signature that I have long experience and have been in close contact with hundreds of women who have had breast cancer diagnoses over nearly two decades. Please do not think that you will be a lesser person if you need chemo. There are side effects, but I am still here and do not have any really difficult lingering side effects from all my treatments.

Bodies do recover, and heal. That is what I kept in mind.
__________________
"When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest." H.D. Thoreau
Live in the moment.

MY STORY SO FAR ~~~~
Found suspicious lump 9/2000
Lumpectomy, then node dissection and port placement
Stage IIB, 8 pos nodes of 18, Grade 3, ER & PR -
Adriamycin 12 weekly, taxotere 4 rounds
36 rads - very little burning
3 mos after rads liver full of tumors, Stage IV Jan 2002, one spot on sternum
Weekly Taxol, Navelbine, Herceptin for 27 rounds to NED!
2003 & 2004 no active disease - 3 weekly Herceptin + Zometa
Jan 2005 two mets to brain - Gamma Knife on Jan 18
All clear until treated cerebellum spot showing activity on Jan 2006 brain MRI & brain PET
Brain surgery on Feb 9, 2006 - no cancer, 100% radiation necrosis - tumor was still dying
Continue as NED while on Herceptin & quarterly Zometa
Fall-2006 - off Zometa - watching one small brain spot (scar?)
2007 - spot/scar in brain stable - finished anticoagulation therapy for clot along my port-a-catheter - 3 angioplasties to unblock vena cava
2008 - Brain and body still NED! Port removed and scans in Dec.
Dec 2008 - stop Herceptin - Vaccine Trial at U of W begun in Oct. of 2011
STILL NED everywhere in Feb 2014 - on wing & prayer
7/14 - Started twice yearly Zometa for my bones
Jan. 2015 checkup still shows NED
2015 Neuropathy in feet - otherwise all OK - still NED.
Same news for 2016 and all of 2017.
Nov of 2017 - had small skin cancer removed from my face. Will have Zometa end of Jan. 2018.
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