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Old 10-22-2011, 11:00 AM   #16
StephN
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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Misty woods of WA State
Posts: 4,128
Re: Finding Little Comfort in the Statistics of Survival

Nice to hear some of your philosophies so well stated.

MTN - I also listened to the same positive affirmations tape, and since I was given such a dire prognosis with raging liver mets, etc., I needed to hear those words you quoted. They helped me get my head into a better place and quell some of the doubt that raced through me at my stage IV diagnosis. I did not have long to live in limbo wondering if my cancer would strike again.

It was bewildering to me how my body could just ignore a year of surgeries, chemo and radiation and let my cancer just have its own way so quickly. My stage IV was dumped on me like a ton of bricks. Just that fast, as I thought I was feeling quite well!

Whatever those nightly bedtime tapes did for my mind-body connection, it was my mental state that needed calming and that was achieved.

I was not yet in a place where reading would have done me any good, and I could not concentrate anyway. My energy was going toward sending the chemo to those too-numerous-to-count mets.
__________________
"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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