June 4, 2006

My relationship with Herceptin is one of love and of hate.  The longer I stay on it, the more intense my side effects seem to become.  I have battled a two-day headache this weekend, and I'm sure it didn't help that I traveled this week, right after my triple dose.  The traveling definitely was a good thing though.  In addition to attending a really helpful series of meetings for work, I was able to "crash" the ASCO convention, which is an oncology convention attended by thousands of oncologists and other professionals from around the world.  The people from the Her2support site were there, and they were kind enough to get me a badge.  There was a tremendous amount of information presented, the best news being that the Her2 drug that Glaxo Smith Kline has been working on (the one I have been watching for the last 6 or 8 months) is really close to being available.  There are several articles that I am hoping to get my hands on after reading the abstracts that relate to my situation.  Walt Carney, my friend from Oncogene Science was presenting his work on the Bayer serum testing, but he wasn't there the days I was there, so I didn't get to meet him in person.

It was such a huge coincidence that the ASCO thing was going on when I happened to be in Atlanta.  This week I will be in San Diego--I wonder what will be going on there?!?!  After my meetings in San Diego on Friday I am taking the train to LA and staying with my friend Joan for the weekend.  That will be so cool!

The new Glaxo drug, trade named now "Tykerb," has shown to decrease the odds of brain mets, which is something for which I am at high risk.  They have approved compassionate use of this drug, but I am not sure yet if I will qualify on that basis (that would get me use of the drug earlier than FDA approval).  The drug will hopefully be approved by the FDA late this year.  I am still on triple doses of Herceptin every three weeks, and in September I will decrease the frequency to every three months.  But hopefully soon after that I can switch to Tykerb.

I still am debating my reconstruction timing and whether or not to go ahead and lop off the other one too.  I still have greater odds of getting cancer elsewhere in my body than I do in the other breast, but sometimes I think that anything I can do to decrease my chances of ANY recurrence is the smart thing to do.