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StephN · 04-06-2013, 12:08 PM

Hello Amanda -

Not a nice way to start spring - to learn your cancer is back!

Herceptin was in trials in 1999 through 2004, so unless you got it in a trial, you were given only chemo in those years. (If you even were tested for HER2 ...)

There are now various ways to treat bone mets, from new drugs to radiation. Look at any and all possibilities before you settle on a treatment.

Once we get a cancer diagnosis and go through all the months and months of surgeries and drugs, that feeling of vulnerability never quite leaves most of us. Through this time most of us develop another level of internal fortitude against the time we may get bad news again.

Draw on your ability for resilience and make sure you have some time for YOU to relax and let the treatments work. (I know, hard to follow that last advice in these busy times, but priorities change!)

All the very best.

04-06-2013, 12:08 PM	#7
StephN Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Misty woods of WA State Posts: 4,128	Re: Help its back! after 10 years Hello Amanda - Not a nice way to start spring - to learn your cancer is back! Herceptin was in trials in 1999 through 2004, so unless you got it in a trial, you were given only chemo in those years. (If you even were tested for HER2 ...) There are now various ways to treat bone mets, from new drugs to radiation. Look at any and all possibilities before you settle on a treatment. Once we get a cancer diagnosis and go through all the months and months of surgeries and drugs, that feeling of vulnerability never quite leaves most of us. Through this time most of us develop another level of internal fortitude against the time we may get bad news again. Draw on your ability for resilience and make sure you have some time for YOU to relax and let the treatments work. (I know, hard to follow that last advice in these busy times, but priorities change!) All the very best. __________________ "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.