Nina -
First - I live in Italy (am American) but I moved here to be with my fiance (met him on the street in Rome!) yah, great story, but 3 years in I found out I had cancer. So --- dealing with cancer in another language - well is a bummer! My oncologist speaks some english (but not that great and always seems to revert back to Italian with me) so.... I had to write everything down (even tape recorded some meetings with doctors) then came home and looked up the drugs and therapies on the internet to read about them in english... (side note ---LOVE FREE HEALTH CARE!!!!)
I chose navelbine as I read up on all the "options" my oncologist here in Italy gave me for chemo - as I wanted the Herceptin and no chemo. She said I had to do a "chemo" so gave me 3 options (don't remember the names but can find them if its helpful as they are in my file) - but gave me 3 different options - for the chemo. 1) most effective 2) medium effective 3) least effective
Navelbine was in the 3) catagory - so I originally thought I would just take the "middle" of the road --- however I read about each of the drug options - and there were a few that had things that made me say --- no way - like one on the "medium" list had heart issues as a bad side effect and I thought it would be a double negetive with the Herceptin. Then I found several articles that praised the combination of Navelbine with Herception - saying that using them "together" had the same results as a heavier - more effective (and more TOXIC) chemo. For me it was a NO brainer. Granted I was stage 1 and lymph nodes were clear - so I felt I needed to just combat the Her2.
For homone therapy - same thing --- my doc says it is the "normal" thing to do and that it surely will prolong my life --- but I have yet to find a really positive article that says that "X" drug seems to work well for those with HER2. Most articles I found say that ".... Her2 seems to be resistant to hormone therapy" --- I have googled and searched and searched and yet to find one --- so if you girls out there have a really positive article - I'm all for it! Also --- being premenopausal - there is another type of drugs and I think the post -menopausal drugs have better results with hormone therapy - AI's I think they call them.
I am seriously thinking of begging my doctor here to just take the overies out --- and still not do the drugs.
Also - I am doing a huge diet and nutritional approach with the Herceptin - and modern (west) medicine that I am doing - as I don't want to just leave it up to drugs ... Fundimentally I just don't like the thought of adding one more chemical (with side effects) into my body for my body to deal with... even if I am afraid of this Her2 beast. "chemical" menopause just sounds like something that isn't that great to do --- so I am still not doing "anything".
I want to do everything I possibly can to NEVER see this beast again in my body. So, became a vegan - and am watching my pH and taking a huge amount of supplements ... juicing and doing exercise and yoga... hoping that in 5-7 years I can too become a poster-chick for surviving long term (with no other cancer or chemo) because of diet.
I hit my year mark the other day --- ! ;-)
I have a ton of information on pH and diet - and books and web links if you want - email me and I'll send them to you ---
wheelistic@yahoo.com
:-)
Karen
PS - since you haven't started chemo - search google for Navelbine and Herceptin - you can find the articles and read them. They use it a lot with Herceptin - and you have very similar stats to me --- size and results. I had a 1/4 mastectomy (think they took more though!) but I'm thrilled as the margins were clear and I still have enough I don't look too lopsided!
Oh, and I didn't get that sick ---yah felt like crap - but didn't lose my hair! And that really was a nice thing as I would have just hated to lose my long hair --- I know we all deal with it - but it really helped me stay a bit more positive when the situation was really sucky back last year in the middle of all the discovery of having cancer.