HER2 Support Group Forums - View Single Post - "Living while waiting"

StephN · 05-14-2009, 12:33 PM

Thanks everyone, once again, for your encouragement to carry on in the present fashion regarding my canser treatment.

I really appreciated some of the "nuggets" from Andi. This puts my feelings perfectly:

I am not so much done w/treatment as tentatively taking a hiatus, w/visions of permanence. Knowing well of the impermances within Life itself.

I DO feel somewhat tentative, but am trying to put that behind me as well. However this is even harder when the canser has jerked my chain more than once. Is it folly to believe that the canser has let go of ME?? Is it folly to believe that the mutation that caused all this in the first place has been somehow corrected?

Being very busy now, I do not give all this too much thought ATM. But I had the musing yesterday that the Herceptin half-life has passed and I am now without any bad cells being targeted. Me, my immune system and God.

05-14-2009, 12:33 PM	#26
StephN Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Misty woods of WA State Posts: 4,128	Thanks everyone, once again, for your encouragement to carry on in the present fashion regarding my canser treatment. I really appreciated some of the "nuggets" from Andi. This puts my feelings perfectly: I am not so much done w/treatment as tentatively taking a hiatus, w/visions of permanence. Knowing well of the impermances within Life itself. I DO feel somewhat tentative, but am trying to put that behind me as well. However this is even harder when the canser has jerked my chain more than once. Is it folly to believe that the canser has let go of ME?? Is it folly to believe that the mutation that caused all this in the first place has been somehow corrected? Being very busy now, I do not give all this too much thought ATM. But I had the musing yesterday that the Herceptin half-life has passed and I am now without any bad cells being targeted. Me, my immune system and God. __________________ "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.