Big news and time to celebrate

First I want to say how grateful I am to all of you for your support and friendship. And although things are looking slightly less dismal for me, I know that a great many others continue their battles and I pray that God will answer their prayers for healing too.







At my oncologist's appointment on Tuesday we learned that the anti-hormonal therapy is WORKING, and my tumor markers have dropped from 145 to 110, about a 20% decrease! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Doctor is very happy and thinks I could expect this therapy to last up to 5 years! Of course in some women, this therapy lasts only a few months- so I still have my fingers crossed. When this one stops working, he would switch me to a different one... and on and on. Ultimately the cancer will probably outsmart the anti-hormonal therapies and it will learn to grow independent of estrogen, at which time we would go back to traditional chemo (bye bye hair). But if that is 5 years+ down the road, who knows what new chemo will be available then? Maybe new radiation or immune therapies will come down the pipeline to me.














The next step will be to remove my ovaries, which is the major source of estrogen, and make me post-menopausal. Will schedule that in a few months. So far I haven't had any bad menopause symptoms, a few hot flashes, but very very very manageable. I will continue to take femara (to block estrogen from adrenal glands), my tyrosine kinase inhibitor (Tykerb/lapatanib for Her-2), and get i.v. herceptin (antibody to Her-2) every three weeks, but then I won't have to get the painful anti-hormonal implant (Zoladex) every couple months. Doctor thinks that I could stop the Tykerb, since I'm already picking on the Her-2 pathway with herceptin, but the scientist in me really likes the dual pathway inhibition, and Tykerb is much more likely to pass through the blood brain barrier than herceptin, and prevent those nasty circulating tumor cells from setting up shop in my brain.

One word of optimism, if my doctor thought I wasn't going to make it 5 years or more, he wouldn't recommend the surgery (as surgery negatively affects quality of life during recovery), but since he thinks I have a future, he thinks the surgery is a good investment.

Coincidentally, we planned a trip to Playa Del Carmen (Mexico) this next week and I can't think of a better way to celebrate my future and say "hasta luego" to cancer!