[VaMoonRise]

Hi, Everyone,

Many of you may already know that I have been on the clinical trial of Herceptin, Taxol and Tykerb since December 23, 2005 and Zometa once a month. I take Tykerb every day orally at home and I receive Herceptin and Taxol once a week with one week off of Taxol. I have extensive liver mets spread throughout both lobes and two spots on my spine. So far I have been having a great response to treatment. The two largest tumors in my liver had shrunk by 20% after just eight weeks of weekly treatments. Since then they have continued to shrink drastically and the smallest of tumors in the liver are no longer evident and my bone mets are stable.

I will be having a CT scan done on July 28, I will be sure to let you all know the results.

Most of the side effects that I experience are from the Taxol. I had to take a short break from the Taxol a few weeks ago because of having a lot of numbness in my feet. During that break I felt really good, no more diarrhea, the numbness in my feet improved and I wasn't as fatigued. I am back on the Taxol now but I really felt that the side effects of just the Herceptin and Tykerb were very mild while I was on that break. I truly look forward to being able to come off of the Taxol altogether one day. They say that I will probably always be on the Tykerb and possibly the Herceptin for a long time to come. I am perfectly happy with that because I really believe that these two drugs used in combination are wonderful.

I can't wait until this becomes available for everyone. I just responded to a post that Karen wrote, she has recently started on Herceptin and Tykerb and it sounds like she is having good results as well.

This is just so exciting to me as I was the first person in the world to go on this trial and I am finally finding other women who are starting it, it is wonderful to finally be able to talk to someone else on this combination. I can't wait to hear more from Karen.

Big Hugs Everyone,
Nicola