The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Hello amazing group.

Here is a thread to post photos and impressions of this year's San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

I will open with a great photo of some (most) of our group with Dr. Denis Slamon. He had just moderated a great presentation on the birth, development and sequels to Herceptin. All I had to do was approach him saying we were "Joe's HER2 ladies" and his attention turned completely to us!

We were able to talk briefly and take all the photos we wished. Seems the world's top docs are all like that. Once they see that a patient is who is approaching, you get their attention. There are not that many patient advocates at this meeting, and our questions are met with thoughtful answers.

Group photo L to R: Melissa (Mel3), JoanM, AliceM, Dr. Slamon, StephN, PaulaO.
(We represented fairly closely the 4 corners of the lower 48!)

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Very nice, photo, Steph. Can you name the women? (I know two).
Thanks,
Karen

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Karen - You got ahead of me - I needed to do it in edit mode, so I got us in the right order ... chemo brain, you know!

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Great Pic Ladies! And nice that you had Dr. Slamon in it!

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Beautiful photo of our Her2 Rock Stars!

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

I love this picture, thanks Steph and thanks Ladies for being our advocates.
Michka

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

How lovely to see you all almost in real time! And how very special to meet Dr Slamon. Thanks for representing us all in San Antonio - I'm sure I'm not alone in saying how valuable I find this!
Cheers Marie

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

I really liked the format of the Her2 presentation the evening that photo was taken: after a delicious dinner the panel of drs spoke. It was great hearing from one of our Her2 Heros, Dr Slamon. Nice guy. Then different scenereos of patient cases were presented and each table came up with their choice of treatment and voted thier answer on the ipad and you could see statistically how the entire room of people voted. I've learned so much here on this website and in my own journey through Cancerland,I was able to contribute to coming up with the right answers in the cases presented. :) It seemed that most of the folks at my table either knew nothing about Her2 positive breast cancer or most of them sure didn't want to express their opinion of what should be done in each patient case anyway even after learning from the presentation. Only three of us were willing to give our input each time although we tried to include everyone--oh well.

I was the sole woman at a table of 8 men. During dinner I had a very interesting conversation with a friendly, young breast surgeon from Brazil that was sitting to my right. A scientist from Germany sat to my left but I don't think he spoke a lot of english. An advocate told me about the "Bravia" reconstruction procedure and so I asked this breast surgeon about it. He likes the results of that method and personally knows the doc who developed it in Miami: http://www.miamibreastcenter.com/rec...stectomy-miami --it says no incisions, implants, or new scars and apparently most sensation is maintained--a transfer of your own fat via injection after your skin is loosened up. Anybody here do it this way or have input about it from the website? Here are some of the before and after photos:
http://www.miamibreastcenter.com/rec...e-after-photos
It says no scars but the photos do look like there's a scar on their abdomens. Where did the mastectomy scar go in the first photo I wonder? It looks gone but i don't know how that can be. I have not had reconstruction. This method is of interest to me possibly. No more surgery and the pain that typically goes along with reconstruction sounds good to me.

From the site:


http://www.miamibreastcenter.com/ima...-procedure.gif

• No Foreign Objects
• No Cuts or Incisions
• No Scars
• Liposuction
  (body sculpting)
• Quick Recovery
• Natural Breasts
• Near Normal Sensation (reconstruction)

Paula

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Nice pic of you all. Good report, Paula O. Thanks for sharing.

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

wow you alll look beautiful and radiant! thank you for going and being our advocates - so important. Nice to see our "hero" also!
Paula nice info about the new methods.
thanks
sarah

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Everyone looks great including Dr. Slamon! I met him a couple of years ago at a Breast Cancer Symposium here in Toronto at Princess Margaret Hospital - he patiently spoke with the many Her2 survivors who approached him after his talk.

all the best
caya

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

How many HER2 Sisters does it take to figure out a cell phone camera?

StephN, KarenZ, Rhonda(Sassy), Melissa(Mel3)

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

OMG- these are all great !
Do we have anything from the boat ride the last night?
I will see if someone can help me upload some pictures from the coffee on the river morning.
kz

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Lovely to see pictures of you all and hear your reports. :-)


I am wondering what talk of dealing with herceptin resistance their was? I spoke with my surgeon who is just back from San Antonio and he was all talk of Perjeta - especially in heavily pretreated women (though it is not available for us).
Any thoughts?
Amanda

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Great pictures ladies! So sorry to have missed it...again.
Steph, as soon as we have a date for next year, please let me know...I'd love to try to finally get there! I don't care if I have to take the time unpaid...I want to be part of this wonderful experience next year...and collect some hugs in person!
Denise
ps - I just had what Sister Antoinette Marie used to call a "Revelation Moment"...I realized that I would be more excited to meet Dr. Slamon than to meet Paul McCartney! Now that's saying something! ;)

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Manda -
Glad your onc could attend. There is work on Herceptin resistance. But do not have details top of mind.

One interesting tidbit regarding Tykerb resistance is that drug can elevate ER - causing an effect that women who were hormone negative would not expect to have. Something like 4 posters on that very bugaboo!

Denise - (Take note of above paragraph)
I can tell you that the dates for SABCS next year are Dec. 10 - 14. What I do not know, and is a question for many months down the line, is whether there will be any budget for some of us to participate with the HER2 site. That is not my department.

I also will not be able to go in any event as it is too late in the month for those of us in retail (unless we sell our store?!?).

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

One last time,
Please note budget concerns/issues above and please consider making a small donation to our site. Even with the holidays, most folks (perhaps not all) can donate at least five dollars. If we ALL did that, it would help a LOT. We CAN make a difference with a bunch of small donations we can afford.
KZ

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Funny cell phone photo - gave me a good laugh, thanks for sharing pix, ladies!

RE budget for our site, Karen's point is well taken, and I hope that we are as generous with our own site as we are when sending disaster relief to the red cross for Sandy et al. Cancer is another natural disaster of sorts and perhaps we need to start raising some dough (pun intended) for HER2support.org.
To whom it may concern--I would love to be involved in that task!! -A SoCalGal

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Brilliant pics. Lovely to see you all with Dr Slamon. May he and the other researchers find our cure real soon.
Ellie

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Loved seeing photos of you all in "real life". And how great to have met our rock star and hero!
Keep the faith.

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

The photos are great!!!!! I think T-shirts are in order...Joe's HER2 Girls/Boys!!!!!

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

SASSY - GREAT cell phone picture - our own Her2 rock STARS!! You all look terrific and seem to be having such fun!! Love Kim from CT

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Here are a couple more photos from the conference.

First the famous and much sought after Genentech COOKIES. They are a flat shortbread with a layer of chocolate embossed with the company name. There is a cookie jar in the Genentech booth and if you happen to pass by when it is being filled you can get some.

Second is the whole group (except Alice must have taken this shot) after the first afternoon of presentations. We did not have anything official that evening so had a chance to find a quiet cafe and get to know each other.

L to R: PaulaO, KarenZ, Rhondalea, Rhonda/Sassy, Melissa, StephN

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Genentech sure knows how to attract people to their booth with those cookies! Yummers.

Our very nice waiter took that photo. Unfortunately Joan and Debbie couldn't make that dinner and I think that was the night Alice hadn't arrived yet because of illness.

Goofy photos near the statues at the Convention center would have been a hoot. :)

Paula

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Right you are, Paula. Alice did arrive the next day. That waiter was SO nice. He even gave us each a chilled bottle of water.

Are you speaking of the statues of the famous native sons and daughters in the gallery on the way to the Hot Topics ballroom? I think those are left over from the Hemisphere Expo a few years back. Don't know why they hide them in that out-of-the-way place!

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Great pics ladies. Wondering if anything was said about long time users of Herceptin? Or when/if to come off if NED? I've been on it since 2005.

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

I didn't hear the answer to that , Nsebesta. Sorry.

Stephanie, thems the statues alright. :)

Paula

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Wonderful photos. Thanks for sharing them !!
It must be amazing to be able to attend SABCS !!

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Wonderful pic Steph, I just turned on the TV yesterday morning as I had my breakfast and imagine my surprise to see Dr Slamon giving an interview, it was wonderful and gave me hope now I'm approaching eight years out!

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Hi everyone,

Here are three lovely ladies (Rhonda L, Melissa, and Rhonda [Sassy]) enjoying coffee one morning at SABCS 2012 (on the Riverwalk). What a beautiful morning that was !!!

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One more picture of the gals enjoying coffee ! ! !

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And this was their view........

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Oh, and don't I wish we were all back there right about now.

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Yes ! I can't begin to tell you.
K

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

From the OMG collection....

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

Another from the OMG collection....

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Steph, our connoisseur

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I miss you guys!!!!!

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

OMG is right!
That night time boat ride................there were visions above us, to the left of us and to the right. We were hypnotized!!!!!!!!!
Nice shot of Steph.
I miss you guys too (a lot!). Can we go back yet?

Re: The HER2 group at San Antonio 2012
 

And who are these two hot chicks?