I went to work for awhile today and am feeling pretty much back to normal; still a little bit sore, but nothing out of the ordinary.  So far I've only gotten part of the pathology results on my cells, and how weird is this...the path is different this time than last time.  Last time the cells were Her2 positive and ER & PR negative (ER and PR stands for estrogen and progesterone receptors, which are basically markers that describe cancer cells).  This time the cells are ER positive and PR negative; the Her2 results aren't back yet. 

This means I will likely be taking Tamoxifen or Femara, which are commonly taken for 5 years post-breast cancer treatment.  They are only indicated for patients with ER/PR positive cells, so I need to read up on them because they weren't applicable for me last time.  And having positive receptors is usually considered a good thing, because then these types of drugs can be used; there really aren't any post-treatment drugs when the cells are ER/PR negative.  That's why I've been doing the Herceptin quarterly--no other real choices.

But without doing more research and/or talking to my oncologist, I'm not sure what the ramifications are of one positive receptor and the other negative, and I'm not sure how things change, if at all, if the Her2 receptor is positive.  And I still want to do something preventative with regard to the cells from last time.  So I have some thinking to do :-)