Calling all TNs

Michele - My thoughts and prayers will be with you tomorrow.  Good luck and God bless. 

LauraJane, I've been thinking about you all week. You are doing the right thing to get surgery! Remember, the very best doctors are just guessing about the future, and new treatments are evolving at a rapid pace. I am wishing you a long life of lots of cooking and landscaping and sculpture and everything else you want to do. 

 The hair on my head looks like a dead possum, but I had my last chemo today!!   You all know how I feel about that! 

mitymuffin.  Congrats on finishing chemo.  I finished on Sept 30th and waiting for all the SEs to go away.  I keep telling myself that this is the last one and I just have to get through it.  I can finally eat again but now the balls of my feet are really hurting.  That will take another week to go away.  Thank goodness for drugs in the meantime.  Congrats again. 

Sugar77 -  Filet Mignon - how great.  I have not had much steak since I started chemo.  I think I will wait until ALL my taste is back before splurging but I do love a rare filet.

Laurajane: Will be thinking of you tomorrow. (((((((HUGS)))))))

Laurajane:  I'll echo what other's have said.  I pray God would guide the surgeon's hands to get everything, for a healing touch, and for a quick recovery.  If you belong to a church, I hope someone is coming out to pray with you at the hospital.  If you don't, I would encourage you to call a few church's tonight to see if any of them have a prayer hotline.  Some larger ones do, and you may be able to get in touch with someone even tonight.  I know from reading these posts a whole lot of people are going to be thinking of you and praying for you tomorrow.

I had my bmx Thursday, and today, believe it or not, I got my drains out!  I was only draining 8 ml per day.  I'm very tiny, so maybe the lack of tissue that was removed is why it's gone quicker.  I seem to be healing well and am waiting final pathology.  Preliminary results were negative for 3 nodes... I'm SOO hoping it stays that way!  I had nipple sparing, so far, so good.  They filled the TE's only 25 ml at the time, and will wait another couple weeks to fill more.  This numb weird feeling is really weirding me out.  And range of motion is hard.  I can lift my arms, but then they get "stuck" and it hurts to lower them.  The TE's feel weird too... foreign... hard.. numb.  But at least the cancer is out and I'm healing.  I'm so not looking forward to chemo... seems like an endless road right now... and I still have to have ovaries/fallopian tubes too because I'm BRCA2.

laurajane,

You'll soon be done surgery and on the mend.   Sweet dreams.

mitymuffin,

I am glad you're done chemo.   I hope you don't feel like a dead possum.

Laurajane - You have been on my mind last few days.  Wondering if you having surgery tommorow. Just know that I have been praying for you!

Hi Ladies,

WOW  had my firt taxotere treatment on thursday and i was on a trip to hell and still am.

Slept the day after like a baby , then on saturday night the leg pains began.. first was okay .. hey I was prepared for that.  But sunday, monday and today I thought thats its  im giving up.  I have nver had so much pain in my life. From the hips down to my toes. Contsant pain and then sometimes a shot of pain charging thru my legs. I can hardly walk, cant hardly stand, ,legs are shaky, have no power in them whats so ever.  I have no idea how to lay down in order to ease the pain.  My doc said take paracemetmol 1000mg.. that helps for a short while. On top of all that... still got the constipation to deal with and now complete loss of my tastesense.  Gosh thats annoying..cant even taste my food    I have two more treatments of the stuff.. god stand me by.

I hope yal have had better days on Taxotere.

monish.  Sorry you are having a hard time with SEs.  I was on Taxotere also - it was the worse.  I always heard AC would be the worse but it was easy - by far - compared to Taxotere.  I had my last treatment (of 4) on Sept. 30th (Thursday).  I was OK on Friday and Saturday and then from Sunday to the next Sunday, it was pretty bad.  The balls of my feet hurt for about 2 weeks after treatment.  Everything hurt from the waist down, like you, but mine was minimal.  I could walk, stand, sleep, just slow and steady.  At night I take Vicodin for the pain.  I could barely eat on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdays and I would end up getting my self so weak.  I am also was extremely tired on Taxotere.  BUT... I got through it.  I hope your SEs lessen - hang in there you too will be done one day.  (sometimes I used ice on the bottom of my feet and that helped).

Monisch - I am so terribly sorry that you are suffering from the Taxol as you are, but I can relate totally.  I agree completely with Swanny - the A/C was a walk in the park for me compated to the 1 Taxol and the 3 Taxotere's I had.  I suffered just as you are - with each of them.  After the first, and trying to get by with just Tylenol - I insisted the onc give me hydrocodone, which she did.  I broke each pill in half (although I was allowed to take 1 to 2 every 6 hrs) and took a half which numbed alot of the pain for a short while.  It is vitally important that you not break the chain of pain relief and remember to take whatever pills you have on a regular clock-work type schedule.  She also gave me a muscle relaxer as I was also having lower back muscle spasms, which I have never before experienced.  On top of this was the dang Neulasta shot which also killed my bones.  It is a horror for some of us, and others feel it was the easier chemo they received.  Go figure!  Hang in there, I got through it, Swanny did too, as have many others that suffered as we did.  This too shall pass.  If, God forbid, I ever need to take it again - they will be chasing me and have to catch me first to do so!  I hope the rest of the journey gets a bit easier for you.

Linda

Mitymuffin - Congrats!! That is awesome that you are done - yeah!

Laurajane  -  thinking about you today!! ((HUGS))

So talking about hair - does it ever go back to a normal color other than white?

I go to my PS today to discuss my transfer surgery! Can't wait for that to be done! Have a really bad pain in the TE breast - same one where the tumor was found - don't think it's that just the TE poking me!

Gosh! I have to get on a health kick again - just not into it! Last night I finally really cried about losing both breasts .... hmmmm it's been 6 months!

Good news for metestatic triple negatives: http://hormonenegative.blogspot.com/2010/10/two-new-treatments-for-metastatic-tnbc.html

News from the 35th annual ESMO (European Society of Medical Oncology) Congress in Milan:
• Adding the PARP inhibitor iniparib to chemotherapy added five months to overall survival of patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. What’s even better is that complete or partial response or stable disease was achieved in 55.7 percent of the women, compared with chemotherapy alone. (Complete response: the disease has completely disappeared—no disease is evident on examination, scans or other tests; Partial response:some disease remains in the body, but it has decreased by 30 percent or more in size or number of lesions. Stable disease: the disease has remained unchanged in size and number of lesions.A less than 50 percent decrease or a slight increase in size is generally considered stable disease.) Two phase III studies on iniparib and triple-negative are ongoing. The study was presented by John Pippen, MD, of Texas Oncology, Dallas.
• Adding cetuximab to cisplatin chemotherapy doubled the response rate in women with metastatic triple-negative. Cetuximab targets the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). The results come from a phase II randomized trial of 173 women and included researchers from Spain, Belgium, Austria, Portugal, the UK and Israel.
 

laurajane - good luck tomorrow and don't listen to your surgeon and the stupid expiration date!  I mean really???  Surgeons typically don't have a good bedside manner anyway.  You should be getting the info from your onco (who we really question).  Maybe it is a good idea to seek another opinion and/or treatment out of town. 

Michele S - good luck to you too!