|
Nikki,
Time to take a deep breath and slow down. First of all I was diagnosed in 6/02 with er/pr-, her2+++ bc, 2 tumors each about 1.2 cm, 7 cm of DCIS and 15 of 19 positive nodes. I entered the clinical trial to get herceptin with AC&T and of course was not selected to get the herceptin. 4 rounds of AC, 4 rounds of taxol, mastectomy and 28 days of radiation was my treatment. I was fine until 10/03 when we discover mets in my liver, largest being 6.8 cm. I did not freak out because I knew that I would now get herceptin plus chemo and I had faith it would work. I am very happy to tell you that after weekly taxol/carboplatin/herceptin treatments I have a tiny spot, possibly scar tissue remaining and I am doing well. I feel great and am in no pain and outside of losing my hair, I had have no problems (quite frankly it is hard to believe I was stage iv). No one can predict if and when it will return, but if it does you will have herceptin. It is a wonderful drug. If that doesn't work there are others out there. I want you to do two things: 1) Don't spend all your time worrying about things you cannot control, and 2) Look at the possibility of a recurrence more like a chronic illness such as diabetes and the herceptin is like insulin. Diabetes must be controlled or it will result in an unfavorable outcome; cancer can be the same way. There are lots of people who are stage iv who are brought into remission and live quite long and healthy lives. You cannot control the cancer, but you can control whether you will allow it to interfere with your life. Hope this helps. Hang in there.
Hugs,
Kitty
|
Threaded Mode