Starting chemotherapy March 2017

Scrafgal - Woot woot! Congratulations!!!!! Glad to hear you made it to the other side of FAC. Your signature shows Taxol as well. Will you be getting that next. When will you start? Hopefully you'll have plenty of time to rest and recover from FAC. Sending prayers to all of you affected by the storm. Stay safe down there!

MommyErin - You're so right about life getting back to normal post chemo. I have to say that it does change a bit when you start radiation, mostly because it's a pain having to go there every day. I hope you can get to MD Anderson and get your radiation treatments going. Keep us posted.

AliceAgnes - I hope your surgery went well. Did you end up with an AND? Sending healing thoughts!

I'm officially halfway through my radiation treatments. So far, the only SE is that my skin feels a bit "sunburned", so I can't complain. I'm going to start using the aloe plant that I've been growing for the last two years. Hopefully that will help.

<<Hugs>> to all of you!

Soxfan75

Thank you! I did Taxol first,back starting back in March. So I am DONE with chemo!!! I just rest up to get my TE removed and replaced with my implant. PS wants to wait 8 weeks given my early issues with FAC. Fine with me. I need rest. The stress of the flooding and tornados left the whole city exhausted. My street flooded but home was fine. The water receded and on my side of town it looks pretty good. I was able to get my treatment after all!!! Thanks for your prayers all around. Hope you rads continues with minimal side effects.

Scrafgal--what great news! I feel the same way about being done with chemo. Glad your life wasn't further complicated by significant hurricane damage, too. The rest of the country is rooting for all of you in Houston.

SoxFan--My surgeon just called this morning with pathological results. My largest breast tumor had shrunk to about 3/4", half its pre-chemo size. She took out 20 nodes from layers 1 and 2 because she was unable to locate the one that had tested positive for cancer and was clipped. She said she was glad she did because two of the twenty removed nodes showed traces of cancer. She assured me that radiation to the axillary node area should eliminate any other possible traces. I meet with my oncologist on September 11 to discuss radiation and hormone therapy. My Herceptin infusions will continue through March 2018.

Scrafgal- So glad to hear you're do t with chemo and that you and your home were safe from the hurricane!

Soxfan75- So glad to hear you're having minimal SEs! I know for most women radiation SEs are pretty mild, but then you read the horror stories...

AliceAgnes- Glad they caught the remaining cancer in your nodes so they can treat it!

My radiation has been pushed back due to Harvey, so I start on Thursday this week. I'm so ready to get going with it! I've also started taking letrozole(femara) and am getting ovary suppression shots until I have my ovaries removed later this year. Anyone have cording issues from surgery? Mine's pretty bad according to the PT I saw yesterday, but her massage did wonders! I'm a little stressed about the move to Houston, but staying positive otherwise. Hope you all are doing well

Talk about coming home and crashing--I did that after getting my surgical drains removed today. And I didn't even realize I was tired until they were out!

Probably my main discomfort since surgery has resulted from going bra-less. Without the support of a bra, I developed a rash beneath my right breast where skin rubbed against skin. I got some relief by wrapping an ace bandage around my middle to stop that skin-on-skin contact. Doctor says my surgical wound has healed well. I still am a little low in my red blood cell count from the chemo that ended on July 10, but the doctor is not concerned. He said it will bounce back soon enough.

My next scheduled appointments will be with a lymphedema specialist (no problems yet but I did lose 20 lymph nodes) and a radiation oncologist. My medical oncologist guesses that I will need 7 weeks of radiation for the chest wall and axillary node area.

I keep all of you in thought and prayer and hope for the best for all of us. I eagerly follow each of your posts even if I don't always respond to them.

Special K, congratulations to your two daughters on their work in behalf of all of us! Be sure to thank them for me.

I read with interest the results from your radiation treatments. I meet with my RO for the first time on Thursday, but my MO thinks he'll recommend 35 sessions. If I experience little or no fatigue, I'm thinking I'll return to a part-time job I had before all this cancer stuff began last March.

Soxfan, the meeting with Dr. T was great. He spent an hour with me summarizing my case while illustrating all his explanations with a diagram he drew on a giant sheet of paper. Some things I thought I already understood were made clearer than ever.

I will have 30 sessions in all. On Tuesday I will go for mapping, and radiation will begin after my surgeon sees me one more time. I should be able to return to my desk job soon. Post-surgery healing has gone well and the exercises have pretty well restored my range of motion. I feel blessed!

Soxfan, we can now list my RO among those who prefer that nothing be applied to the skin during radiation. He believes that the natural sloughing-off of damaged skin is a part of the total cancer cure. But I do think he treats all of his patients on a case-by-case basis. I had indicated earlier that I have a fair tolerance for pain (rating myself as a :-I on that line of cartoon faces they show you on a line going from 1 to 10). Another patient of his is using the green tea treatment. He says that if skin problems do need to be treated, they have a variety of creams and lotions on hand and he will just give me one of them on an as-needed basis.

Haha, Soxfan, you're way ahead of me on the subject of tattoos. I have never, ever pondered about "my first tattoo."

The mapping went pretty smoothly overall. However, my "good arm"--the one on the non-surgical side--did not like being stretched out above my head for that long. I get bursitis in that shoulder from time to time. (Today I experienced a little pain just reaching for an object on a high shelf.) They told me just to take whatever over-the-counter med I usually take for arthritis or bursitis flare-ups. So from now on I will take Tylenol before going for my rads. My first session is next week Tuesday at 1pm.

I was introduced to Aquaphor while still on chemo. Although I didn't lose any nails, the skin on each side of my thumbnails cracked pretty badly, so I was given Aquaphor to heal those cracks. It worked. I decided to keep Aquaphor on hand for other skin issues that keep turning up from time to time, especially on my arms where I sometimes get rashes for unknown reasons. They are also where I have numerous old mosquito bites from years past. The bites are now just white spots on my olive-colored skin, but from time to time they start itching all over again as if the mosquito bites were fresh. I know, I know--I am a freak of nature.

Perhaps it was because I also had DCIS in the same breast, and my cancer was multicentric. "Our findings suggest that multifocal/multicentric disease may be associated with worse outcomes versus unifocal disease regardless of type of surgery. This suggests a more biologically aggressive cancer and may be an important consideration when managing these patients," according to this link:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25597248

I think the aggressiveness of my cancer was a factor in how it was treated.

The tumor shrank to about half its original size. It started at 1.7 cm. My medical oncologist did remind me after surgery that a total response to the chemo, rather than the partial response I had, would have been ideal.

I know the DCIS already diagnosed in my right breast, along with the triple-positive status of the cancer in my left, make another occurrence of breast cancer likely for me down the road. I just hope to catch it in an earlier stage next time. I had not been doing annual mammograms, but I sure will do them now!

On another topic entirely, I noticed when grocery shopping yesterday that it is impossible to buy any kind of bread that does not have soybean oil in it. I left with some Wasa crackers instead. I wonder if I should go ahead and buy a good multigrain bread even with the soybean oil in it? I am a sandwich addict.

Greetings!

Okay...It has been too long since I have posted.  I think that I needed a complete break from all things cancer and chemo for a bit.  So, I've simply been trying to catch up with things since I am well enough, after ending chemo a little over 6 weeks ago....mundane things but important things like getting a flu shot, getting my teeth cleaned and watching the Astros advance toward the World Series.  I am feeling pretty good these days and looking forward to the final exchange surgery on Nov. 2.  Soxfan, it did seem like a long time to wait, but now, not so much. I needed the time to rest up and take care of a few things before the surgery. I hope to travel for Turkey day and then return to work (finally).  I started on Tamoxifen a couple of weeks ago.  So far, so good.  I will stop it next week and then resume it sometime after the surgery.  My surgeon wants me off of it two weeks before the surgery.

I also planned a Christmas/New Year's vacation with my sister!  We need it!  We will relax in New Mexico!!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Its been too long for me , logging in here.

Belated Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all you lovely ladies.

Hope you are all doing well and adjusting to our new normal in life.