You guys. The end is in sight. Next week at this time I will be DONE WITH CHEMO!!!!
I am starting to make plans like a normal person. It's awesome. My mom is coming to visit next weekend, and then the weekend after that we are staying at this *F*I*V*E* *S*T*A*R* *H*O*T*E*L* *A*N*D* *S*P*A* called the Umstead that is 20 minutes from our house. Look at it! Even the standard rooms are somehow as big as our first apartment.They have afternoon tea with live harpist accompaniment! Obviously we have never stayed somewhere even close to this great before so it's going to be a nice reward for getting through the last 12 weeks.
It's pretty crazy how 12 weeks seems like foreverrrrrrrrr. We both agree it has both gone quickly and also cannot remember what life was like before. I am so lucky, though, that I caught this thing at Stage 1A because people in later stages have to get 18 to 24 weeks of chemo that is much worse than mine. I can't imagine being 12 weeks in and only halfway done. Cancer sucks.
After this I have to get radiation, but I'm not sure how long that will go for yet - probably 5 to 7 weeks, 5 days a week. I meet with the radiation oncologist next week to learn more. The only side effects are potential temporary skin damage in the irradiated area (I'm hoping my relative youth will be an advantage there) and fatigue that builds toward the end. I think it will be a picnic compared to chemo, but I guess we'll see.
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Friday, May 8, 2015
3 weeks. 98.7%.
Whenever I get too worked up about all this stuff, I walk around with two numbers on repeat in my head: the number of weeks left of this chemo business (THREE), and 98.7%.
My cancer was stage 1a, 1.6 cm, estrogen receptor (ER) and her2 positive. The her2+ stuff is what makes it scary - that means it's aggressive and grows quickly and is more likely to metastasize than cancers which are not her2+. But! Now we have Herceptin, a targeted therapy that shuts down those her2 receptors and, so the internet and my oncologist claim, makes her2+ actually a desirable feature in many ways, because the treatment for it is so good. A wonder drug.
Still, it's hard to trust it, right?
So I click here and read this study a lot: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1406281
"We performed an uncontrolled, single-group, multicenter, investigator-initiated study of adjuvant paclitaxel (Taxol) and trastuzumab (Herceptin) in 406 patients with tumors measuring up to 3 cm in greatest dimension. Patients received weekly treatment with paclitaxel and trastuzumab for 12 weeks, followed by 9 months of trastuzumab monotherapy"
This is what I'm having.
"The median follow-up period was 4.0 years. The 3-year rate of survival free from invasive disease was 98.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 97.6 to 99.8). Among the 12 relapses seen, 2 were due to distant metastatic breast cancer. "
98.7% of women were alive and cancer-free after 3 years. That's a lot. Most, you might say. And only 2 of those women had it metastasize. That's like 0.5%. That's pretty good. The 3-year period might seem short, but her2+ cancers typically come back quickly, within 2 years, if they're going to come back. Mine is also estrogen positive, which can crop up again basically any time, but I guess I'm not too worried about that right now. I just want to get through the next 3 years. And maybe I will!
It's funny, though, that when I see that I don't think, "I will probably be okay," but more like, "there is a slim chance that I might be okay." I've never felt safe hoping for the best, though. Better just prepare for the worst and then be pleasantly surprised, right?
98.7%, though. It's pretty good.
My cancer was stage 1a, 1.6 cm, estrogen receptor (ER) and her2 positive. The her2+ stuff is what makes it scary - that means it's aggressive and grows quickly and is more likely to metastasize than cancers which are not her2+. But! Now we have Herceptin, a targeted therapy that shuts down those her2 receptors and, so the internet and my oncologist claim, makes her2+ actually a desirable feature in many ways, because the treatment for it is so good. A wonder drug.
Still, it's hard to trust it, right?
So I click here and read this study a lot: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1406281
"We performed an uncontrolled, single-group, multicenter, investigator-initiated study of adjuvant paclitaxel (Taxol) and trastuzumab (Herceptin) in 406 patients with tumors measuring up to 3 cm in greatest dimension. Patients received weekly treatment with paclitaxel and trastuzumab for 12 weeks, followed by 9 months of trastuzumab monotherapy"
This is what I'm having.
"The median follow-up period was 4.0 years. The 3-year rate of survival free from invasive disease was 98.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 97.6 to 99.8). Among the 12 relapses seen, 2 were due to distant metastatic breast cancer. "
98.7% of women were alive and cancer-free after 3 years. That's a lot. Most, you might say. And only 2 of those women had it metastasize. That's like 0.5%. That's pretty good. The 3-year period might seem short, but her2+ cancers typically come back quickly, within 2 years, if they're going to come back. Mine is also estrogen positive, which can crop up again basically any time, but I guess I'm not too worried about that right now. I just want to get through the next 3 years. And maybe I will!
It's funny, though, that when I see that I don't think, "I will probably be okay," but more like, "there is a slim chance that I might be okay." I've never felt safe hoping for the best, though. Better just prepare for the worst and then be pleasantly surprised, right?
98.7%, though. It's pretty good.
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