been too long

[Joy]

Hi everyone, I have missed reading and catching up so much. I finally took some time here today on a snowy morning in Colorado to do so. I am so grateful to have all of you in my cyberlife. I love the letter Joe received from the oncologist and have to agree with every bit of it. thank you to everyone who attended SABCS, too.

I have a dumb update and a question on behalf of a client of mine.

Firstly, I began chemo again for the third time due to some progression of old liver mets and the appearnace of new ones (I had great control for almost 3 years with hormonal approaches). So now I'm doing taxol/carbo/herceptin weekly and zometa monthly as we are still a little unsure of bone mets. i have never had a weekly protocol before and know the studies and the logic are behind it, but I feel like i'm more foggy for longer periods of time and it stinks. We are looking at 4-6 months of this and i know i can do it. I just hope it works. Any thoughts or encouragement would be appreciated.

Also I have a her2 client who has had extensive bone mets for years and had WBR for brain mets a few years ago that has so far proven to be effective . Because of high markers she is back in chemo (xeloda with her herceptin and zometa) after good control hormonally. She is good and appears to be responding. She would like to know if anyone who has had WBR and lost their hair (which she did and it came back just a little thinner on top), had it come back and then went through a chemo causing hair loss after which the hair came back? She was curious as to whether, after all of that, the hair would really come back. Xeloda doesn't cause much hair loss, she is just thinking ahead. I think it would as after she has lost it from chemo before and it has come back and it just seems that she must have 'strong-willed' hair for it to come back after WBR too.

Oh and since i'm going on about it, what experiences have people had with weekly taxol and hair loss? I'm prepared for hairlessness, but some say it can be more gradual this way and is that true for eyelashes and eyebrows? Trivial, i know, but i'm just curious.

Mostly i'm ready to kick the crap out of these mets and get to NED as I have never been there-think it's possible? I will get another 6 month brain mri in january and I'm already anxious about that too.

My wish for all of you in this season of reverance is peace, warmth and love and i'm sending all of you as much as i can.