Life after Femara- it just gets better and better!

mollyboo

wow... it's been a long 5 years and I just flushed the last 5 of these evil little pills down the toilet without a second thought, thinking it's finally over. My treatment.... is finally over. My port is coming out Wednesday and I am going to begin feeling like the survivor I am, not a person dealing with cancer. My Zometa is finished, my Femara is flushed, and my port is coming out, ending monthly visits to the onc. What I want to say today is I FEEL FABULOUS!! I wondered if my body would ever recover from the Femara... from feeling 10 years older than it really is, and guess what ladies, the side effects do go away! Now, instead of shuffling to the bathroom in the morning because my ankles won't bend, I'm jumping out of bed like a 20 year old! I'm taking the steps two at a time again! Stopping the Femara just took the 10 years off my life it added to it. Now... if only my cholesterol goes back to the wonderful place it was before I started these evil pills.... I was determined to make these 5 years and take them religiously, knowing that this therapy might just be the thing that saved my life. I am pretty sure I can count on one hand the number of pills I missed except for the short times I was on drug holidays (rash and tree trunk edema of my legs with Arimidex, and horrible pain with statins and Femara!) I'm glad I stayed the course but even more happy I'm starting to feel like me again... and yes, I almost remember who I was before the craziness of BC entered my life. Life is good.

wintersocks

Hi Alakat,

I am on Femara just over 2 years now and have some of the SE's you mention. Was it suggested to you at all to stay on them for longer as I have heard some say 10 years is better.

mollyboo

It never came up that my time on Femara should be extended! With that said... I know that the guidelines could change at any time. Would I go back on it... no! Treatment protocols are constantly changing and what I know is that for me, I've done the best I could do for my particular cancer and for now I'm NED and hope to stay that way! So many women struggle with really severe SEs from these AIs and what I've decided is that each woman really has to decide with her doc if it's worth it to continue on them. If a woman's quality of life is so compromised by SE's for 5 years, maybe it's not worth the benefit of taking the drug. I powered through the SEs but those last two months I was racing for the finish line... like a mad dog running for a bone! I do know, that if the SEs are bad with one AI... another should be tried before throwing in the towel. I pray they don't change the guidelines and start keeping women on AIs for 10 years. That's a long time to ask anybody to take a drug that makes them feel bad!!