My name is Kathleen Miller. I am 57 years old. I live with my husband Charles in Washington State , about 35 miles south of Seattle . We have two grown daughters and three grandchildren.

There is no history of breast cancer in my family, but when I turned 50 years old I decided to start getting yearly mammograms. The first five came out fine. After the sixth one I got a call from my primary care physicians office and they set up an appointment with a surgeon. He showed my husband and me the results of last years mammogram and this one. You could see something but we couldn't feel anything, he advised a biopsy. They did a needle biopsy while doing an ultrasound. It came back malignant.

The surgeon felt it was caught early and recommended a lumpectomy. I also met with an oncologist. He scheduled some tests and I made an appointment to meet with him after the lumpectomy. He also assured me that it was caught early.

I had the lumpectomy done in July 1999. They inserted a wire down to the mass before the surgery. I had a 2.4 cm mass, it was flat and shaped irregularly. That's why I never felt a lump. They also removed 15 nodes and 7 were cancerous. I was Estrogen negative and Her2Neu positive. This didn't mean much to me at the time. I was still in shock and couldn't believe this was happening. My lungs and liver and heart were OK. I had one more test left to do. That was a bone scan. He talked to me about doing chemotherapy. Standard treatment was Adriamycin and Cytoxan. Then because of the node involvement he recommended Taxol or Taxotere and then radiation. He gave us some information to read and some Internet sights to check. He wanted to start chemo after the bone scan results came back.

The bone scan showed something and an MRI was scheduled. It showed a tumor in my thoracic vertebrae, T2. Even my oncologist was surprised. I must have a very aggressive cancer. This changed everything. I was now Stage IV.

In August, 1999, my oncologist started me out on Taxol and Herceptin weekly. I did 6 weeks on and 2 or 3 weeks off. I did this for 14 months. During this time I was doing well. I lost my hair, I was tired and I had some problems with my two big toes getting infected. Except for this I was doing good. At first the tumor was stable, then it slowly started to shrink. Then it was quickly disappearing. By October 2000, the tumor was completely gone.

I started doing weekly Herceptin. In June, 2001, my oncologist started talking to me about stopping the Herceptin. He feels you can't take it forever. I told him I wanted to keep taking it so I continued on. He thought I might consider having some radiation to my breast and the spine as a precautionary measure. In July I started 8 weeks of radiation to my breast and 4 weeks to T2 in my spine. The last week I also did direct Radiation to my scar area on my breast. In August, 2001, my oncoligist decided to start me on Herceptin every 3 weeks instead of weekly. He said studies have shown that the Herceptin remains in your body that long. I am still taking Herceptin every three weeks. On December 26, 2001 , I have my next appointment with the doctor scheduled. I will be getting a bone scan and discussing with my oncologist where we will go from here.