Quote:
|
A friend of my father who has been practicing in oncology for over 50 years saw my blood labs yesterday and said that takes around 2-3 months for your blood to recover and that most people do. It was freaking me out. We will see...
|
It seems that if I get three whole weeks between any treatment, my blood does rise although it's always a bit low. But the way I get treatment is I get one every three weeks and one every month, and that means I frequently have periods of weekly treatment, if that makes sense.
Recently I had the three week period and it was actually normal for the first time in five years! My grans were 2.5 and my hemoglobin was 11.5.
But it dropped again with the next tx.
Anemia and low whites is a known side effect of Perjeta so I'm not surprised. With all the treatment I've had it's to be expected.
The only issue is that now the anemia is acute and I get SO tired. I had my therapy two weeks ago Wednesday, and I was feeling okay. Then the following Wednesday I had Zometa and they did a CBC and my blood had dropped an entire point in everything. Now this week, I've spent a couple days in bed, just tired. So I'm guessing it continued to drop and is back down in the 9s again. Having five years of treatment, I'm sure my marrow is quite stressed.
I also haven't had a MUGA since January - just sort of an overlook. SO I should have that soon. Hopefully, this exhaustion is blood and not heart. I think it is blood since I do recover. However, anybody on Perjeta/Herceptin needs to keep track of your heart monitoring. I don't rely on my doctor to do it (because I now am healthy enough to only see him every 2 months) and so I consider the fact that it's gone this far my fault.
Just a tip - nobody will care as much about your health as you do so keep track of these things.
Even if your medical team is always on the ball, it is good for you to know.
Hope everybody is doing well. I keep having people writing me and telling me that Perjeta/Herceptin is doing for them what it's done for me - making them NED. It's a very exciting time to be HER2+ - of course, only if you respond to the drugs out there. But they seem to have cracked the code and are coming up with new things all the time.
__________________
http://butdoctorihatepink.com
08/17/09 Dx'd.
Multifocal/multicentric IDC, largest 3.4 cm, associated ADH, LCIS, DCIS
HER2+ ER+/PR- Grade 3, Node Negative
10/20/2009: Right mastectomy, reconstruction with TE
12/02/2009: Six rounds TCH, switched to Taxol halfway through due to neuropathy
03/31/2010: Finished chemo
05/01/2010: Began tamoxifen, the worst drug ever
11/18/2010: Reconstruction completed
12/02/2010: Finished herceptin
05/21/2011: Liver Mets. Quit Tamoxifen
06/22/2011: Navelbine/Zometa/Herceptin
10/03/2011: Liver Resection, left lobe. Microwave ablation, right lobe - going for cure!
11/26/2011: C-Diff Superbug Infection, "worst case doctor had seen in 20 years"
03/28/2012: Progression in ablated section of the liver - no more cure. Started Abraxane, continue herceptin/zometa
10/10/2012: Progression continues, started Halaven, along with herceptin and zometa.
01/15/2013: Progression continues, started Gemzar and Perjeta, an unusual combo, continuing with herceptin and zometa
03/13/2013: Quit Gemzar, body just won't handle it. Staying on herceptin, zometa and perjeta.
04/03/2013: CT shows 50% regression in tumor, so am starting back on Gemzar with dose reduction, staying with perjeta/herceptin/zometa. Can't argue with success!
05/09/2013: Discussing SBRT with Radiology due to inability of bone marrow to recover from chemo.
06/07/2013: Fiducial placement for SBRT
07/03/2013: Chemo discontinued, on Perjeta, Herceptin and Zometa alone
07/25/2013: SBRT (gamma knife) begins
08/01/2013: SBRT completed
08/15/2013: STABLE! continuing with Perjeta, Herceptin, Zometa
06/18/2014: ***** NED!!!!***** continuing with Perjeta, Herceptin, Zometa
01/29/2014: Still NED. continuing with Perjeta, Herceptin. Zometa lowered to every 3 months instead of monthly.
11/08/2015: Progression throughout abdomen and lungs. Started TDM-1, aka Kadcyla. Other meds discontinued. Remission was nice while it lasted.
5/27/18: Stable. Kadcyla put me right back in the barn. I have two teeny spots on my lungs that are metabolically inactive, and liver is clean.
I’m beating this MFer. I was 51 when this started and had two kids, 22 and 12. Now I’m 60. My oldest got married and trying to start s family. My youngesg graduates from Caltech this June. My stepdaughter gave me grandkids. Life is fantastic.