Has anyone heard from Gina? I'm worried

[michele u]

I've tried to email her a couple of times. I'm really worried about her!! If you see this Gina, just let us know if your ok.

[Gina]

Hi, Michelle, Hi, Shoreh, and so many others who have e-mailed and called...,

It is SO sweet of so many of you to kindly remember me and my "wild" and "crazy" Herceptin ways...

I am happy to report that I just celebrated my 43rd birthday and am quite alive and well, living the crazy busy Gina life as usual. A recent Muga scan was 63.9 and as most of you know, I have used Herceptin off and on since 1999, with apparently no severe ill effects and huge benefits. I am now well into my 10th year of survival since dx in 1997 but continue to take Herceptin faithfully with my basic regimen which, as most of you know, has changed little if at all-- for at least these past 8 years.

Since August, 2005, I have been back to almost more than full-time contract work where I am acting CFO for two very busy companies which really eats up all my spare time. Plus, my son --who is now 15 and a half--and soon to get his learner's permit-- is quite a handful. I must say that after years of living on scat disability and next to no money, that I am now quite addicted to earning REAL money again and of financial necessity, had to quit almost all of my Her-2 volunteer work, both on this site and locally with real patients, in order to pay off fines to social security disability and medicare and insurance debts and a host of other bills that many of you know accumulate when one is sick for extended periods as I have been during these past 10 years with severe her-2 mediated disease.

Any spare time I have had has been devoted to continuing research for a bacterial root that activates erbB2 and I have been interested to note that the pendulum in this whole area of research is finally beginning to swing more in the infection direction--although some of the newer research, that I believe some of you have discussed on this site, has been more viral-related, but still, it is good to know at last Science with a Captial "S" is, in general, starting to look in the right place, through still groping in the dark, and not just where the mainstream flashlight has been shining (aka, genes) all this time. Hopefully, very soon, a grand unified theory (GUT) for her-2 mediated disease will debut and soon afterwards, something much more like a real cure, versus a mere control, can be administered to us all. That is my dream anyway, but sadly, it seems we are still not quite there.

Best advice is just to keep keeping on. Try every day to Live your REAL life and not be so consumed by the C-word. Around the middle of last year, I suffered a painful lesson. One of the gals with Her-2 3+ (ER-/PR-) that had taken Herceptin side-by- side with me for YEARS--somehow ended up with brain mets even though her serum her-2 was not elevated and before I realized what was happening to her, she was gone. At her funeral, her minister said all these things about her that I never knew--she loved literature (like me), was an English major (like me), volunteered in the Hispanic community (like me), was of Eastern European origin (like me), but you know why I NEVER knew any of this till her death??? Because every time we got together we were EACH consumed by only one thing...Her-2/Herceptin and the discussion of it.

Since her loss, I have been trying to re-incorporate back into my life some of the many non-her-2 things having this illness has taken away. One of those was my love for dabbling in foreign languages so for the past 9 months, I have been trying to learn Russian (it is my first language with the Cyrillic alphabet). All this is for a trip that will start in Greece this summer and then work its way up through several Eastern European countries as I have been told that the older generations will speak Russian in these places (though maybe not always their preference) and the younger generations will of course speak English. This will be much simpler than trying to learn so many other slavic languages and/or dialects. My son has an extra long summer vacation and we are trying to do a major international trip every 2 or 3 years...some of you will remember that we did the Harry Potter train trip in Scotland a few summers back.

I am also in the middle of a much needed dream remodel of my kitchen. Many of you remember my fondess for gourmet cooking and my famous "Gourmet Girls' Night Out Group"--which still continues to this day, believe it or not--although with my most recent b-day, as well as several b-day's for the others, I think we may soon need to change our name to "Old bags over 40's evening tea outing "...smile....

As you can see, I still find laughter the very best medicine for dealing with all we have to deal with every day. If my work slows up--not likely--I promise I will try to write more regularly as time permits.

My very best to you all with much love and wishes for continued success,
Gina

[Karen Weixel]

Great to hear from you Gina.

Karen

[sassy]

Gina,


So good to hear from you and that your absence is from LIFE moving on. If you are ever down my way, call me and we'll do lunch! We can talk about-----basketball?!
________
California Medical Marijuana Dispensary

[Bev]

Hi Gina,

Glad to hear all is well. Your son is driving already, yikes.

I'm wondering if I know your Eastern European friend. KK?

My neighbor's mom is visiting from Albania. She knows Russian.

Good luck to you on your continuation of enjoying life. Bev

[Becky]

Gina


Its so wonderful to read your words!!! I miss you very much.

[michele u]

Gina,

I'm sooooo glad your doing ok. Congrats on your 10 year...wow, what a story. I'm glad your traveling. That's my passion too. I want to someday travel the Rine River in Germany and visit the castles. I missed you!!!

[lia]

Just wanted to say how lovely it was to read a message from Gina , when I first started on these forums Gina was a huge help to me and I m so glad she s doing well .

[Barbara H.]

Hi Gina,
It was great to hear from you and that you are doing well. I have always enjoyed your posts. Unfortunately, Herceptin stopped working and I now have bone mets. Navelbine kept them from progressing, but did not get rid of them. I went off Navelbine in December and am now having a bone biopsy on Thursday to determine the status of the bone mets. The skin, lung, liver, and brain mets I had 3 years ago were brought to and remain NED by Herceptin as a single agent. I did not develop bone mets until a year ago, which is why my oncologist wants to check their status to make sure they are still HER2 or have morphed to homome positive.
Again, thanks for the update and for posting.
Barbara H.

[Joy]

Thank you Gina your post was very encouraging and so appreciated. The story you shared was so beautiful and made such a good point. I'm very sorry for your loss and so happy that you shared something so pivotal and important. What a gift to us in that story. Take good care of yourself!

[sherri]

Hey Gina,

So good to hear from you. I miss you so much but I'm glad you are doing so well. Your e-mail is a joy to read as usual.

Big hug,