Dear Erin,
I can only give you advice from my own personal "one rat study".
As you can see from my signature I am a stage IV and still here! One of the things I have done during my whole time fighting breast cancer is continue to exercise.
My passion is horseback riding and just two years ago I took up endurance riding. I ride regularly about 25 miles a week, not to mention all the work that goes into taking care of my two horses.
This Saturday I competed in a ride that just kicked my BUTT! Miles and miles of steep hills. This was my new horse's first endurance ride so I got off and jogged alot of the steep sections (both up and down) to give him a break.
Today I can hardly walk, but I am on Cloud Nine because we completed that ride. (dead last, but we completed!)
In answer to the lymphedema question. I regularly lift heavy hay bales and tote buckets of heavy water with my BC arm and have never had any issues. My doctor is aware of all that I do and has never told me to stop, so I guess he feels it is better to keep doing whatever it is that makes us tick.
I don't know how long I will be NED this time, but I believe that the more I exercise and the stronger I become, the more fight I will have in me the next time I have to go on Chemo.
So, don't know if that answers your question, but knock on wood, it's what works for me!
Kim in CA
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Diag. Feb 1997 4.5cm IDC <10%ER+, PR-. 5 out of 36 nodes +. Mastectomy followed by 3 rounds Adriamycin/Cytoxin.
5/1997 Hi Dose Chemo w/ Stem cell rescue. Spent 4 weeks in isolation ward. Then 6 weeks radiation.
9/2001 widespread mets to liver. 8 mos Taxotere/Herceptin brought me almost to NED. Stop Taxotere & add Femara .
11/2002 liver resection to remove spot that turned out to be necrosis. Officially NED!
7/2003 Tumor markers rising add Xeloda Disastrous reaction, 8 days hospital, but tumor markers came back to normal!
June -Dec 2004 UW Vaccine Trial.
7/2005 MRI single 11mm brain met
8/2005 Gamma Knife.
Brain MRI @3 months NED!
2006-2011 brain/body still NED
8/04/11 Taking Herceptin break, will monitor with tumor markers.
6/20/12 Tumor markers begin to rise. CA15-3 is 31.3 and Her2 Serum is at 17.1 Decide to repeat in one month.
7/23/12 CA15-3 now 49.3
Her2 Serum 26.8
8/6/12 Back on Herceptin
CA15-3 now 76
Her2 Serum now 49
11/7/12 Add weekly Taxotere for 4 cycles
2/2013 Stopped Taxotere added Perjeta. MRI shows approx. 50% reduction liver mets. CA15-3 still elevated @ 55. Will continue on just Herceptin & Perjeta.
November 2014 Continuing on Herceptin, Perjeta, and
Femara indefinitely. Guess I'm NED again, but watching those tumor markers carefully!
Dec. 2015 PET scan reveals mass in perirectal area of abdomen.biopsy confirms. Still Her2+, but no longer ER+. Bye bye Femara
Jan 2016 Begin Kadcyla
March 2016 PET scan shows tumor now barely visible, still NED everywhere else.
2016/2017 continue Kadcyla
November 2017 brain MRI reveals small focus of T2 hyperintensity with possible 4mm enhancing nodule. Short term follow up MRI suggested. Stay tuned...
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