Ca27.29 climbing, but is that significant?

Doctor's appointment went fine last Wednesday, he said that my immediate blood tests were good, all back within the normal range. But then today I got back my Ca27.29 results and the numbers once again are climbing. They went from being 99 in May, to 76, 45, then up to 54 and the latest was 68. 68 is still relatively low, I've heard of people with active disease having numbers in the 1000s. Doc said that he'd be more concerned if it was at least doubling over several months- so I shouldn't worry. Well that's easy for you to say.

I hate the fact that I've taken such good care of my body and it has betrayed me. I really really really get annoyed with how society thinks (and I did too) that if you exercise & eat right you won't get cancer. People mistake "healthy" with being physically fit- which is not at all the same thing. Being physically fit does NOT prevent you from getting the flu, or a cold or EVEN CANCER! Besides physical fitness is superficial, and who is to say that they know what is going on inside their bodies by looking at the exterior. I know quite a few women that are very physically fit and they still got cancer. All the craze with exercising, eating vegan or organic foods is lulling society into a false sense of security. It makes you believe that if you do these things you can control your body. WRONG. Just look at the little children who get leukemia or diabetes- is it because they didn't exercise or because their parents didn't serve them organic foods? It is not.

Just like we have no control over which genes are turned on or off in every cell in our body- we can't prevent bad things from happening to seemingly "healthy" people. The bottom line is we are all dying from some chronic disease, just most of us don't know it yet. And there are the occasional individuals that live into their 90s- why, you ask. They are just freaking lucky.

House pictures

Doctor appointment tomorrow, will get blood work and hopefully can schedule a stress test for my heart. I've been concerned about chest pains lately, which sort of radiate throughout my shoulders when I exercise. Its pretty intense, I get short of breath and feel faint. Its probably because I'm so out of shape, but heart disease does run in the family and with all the chemo drugs I've been on I just want the reassurance that I don't have a heart condition. Then once I have that confidence, I'll be back to pushing myself and feel okay when I feel "the burn".

Finally have pictures of the house going up. These are from day 2 and day 3. Super excited. Also wanted to pass along that I, and a bunch of people from my mom's group will be walking the 1 mile Especially for You walk at Mercy Hospital on October 2nd.

And lastly for all you immunology researchers out there- I just met (online) a gal who is going to join a clinical trial for metastatic breast cancer, where they will prime her own Dendritic cells against the Her-2 protein and then reinfuse them into her. I was super excited to see that some of the work we do at the lab bench does translate back to patients- and I feel so proud to have been a part of that. The trial is out East, so I won't be joining the study, but I can't wait to hear the results. Oh and one more fun fact- if your looking for the next grant/fellowship to write, consider metastatic breast cancer. The vast majority of breast cancer research is directed at the initial treatment and/or the etiology of the disease. Very little actually focuses on the metastatic disease which accounts for all breast cancer deaths. So its a under-researched area, FYI.