[Odette]

Hi Sherry, Flori,

Yes, that was exactly my question, could not I just take the Tykerb w/o the Xeloda?
I even concidered cheating about it... hmm.
Here are a couple of relevant details: I had preoperative A/C (4 cycles) and then Taxotere and Herceptin. Unfortunately I had progression already while on the Tax/ Herceptin (I could feel new lump(s) under the arm ugh) confirmed by ultrasound. 16/17 positive lymph nodes at operation.

Then I had the mastectomy and within 6 weeks my neck was hurting and my throat felt it was closing because of this rapidly growing lump in the lymph node.
This was zapped out by radiation. My oncologist discontinued the Herceptin, since it definitely had not been useful.

I was super scared.

I looked into all the alternative treatments that looked sensible.
I went to the Memorial Sloan Kettering to a young oncologist who believes that this may be helpful for me.
She recommends 4 or 6 cycles of Xeloda and a year of Tykerb.

I'm determined to tough it out if I possibly can.
Right now I'm super excited about the possibility of seeing my kids graduate: son 2008 college, daughter in 2010 college, other daughter 2011 grad school.
I even looked at the Gonzalez Protocol, which sounds promising to me but prohibitively expensive at this time.

Thank you for caring!
I wish I had found this group earlier, I had felt so alone with my crazy agressive BC, but I see I'm definitely not alone and hope to help each other through these hard times!

Love and prayers,

Odette