November 27, 2005

Second triple dose of Herceptin went fine again this week.  I have the ladies on the Her2 support website to thank for the advice about switching to every three weeks.  I am still tired the weekend after the treatment, but it is very manageable.

I still have not heard anything about the vaccine trials that I want to join, especially the one in Seattle.  I had blood work done to check my menopausal status, and I am definitely not in menopause.  So I have to wait for the pre-menopausal trial to open up.  However, now that I am on Herceptin, I am not as worried about finding a trial.  There is a oral drug that Glaxo-Smith Kline is introducing late next year or early 2007 that's specifically for Her2 cancers.  So that one should be just in time for me, if it turns out that I need it.

November 23, 2005

Yesterday it was exactly one year ago that I had that fateful mammogram.  In some ways the time has flown by--sometimes it only seems like yesterday that I was forced to kick my health care management into high gear.  Other times it seems like it's been forever--much longer than a year.  I think the worse is behind me :-)

November 13, 2005

They were right.  Triple doses don't seem to have different side effects than single doses.  I had my first triple dose on November 3, and the doses will be timed perfectly for me to avoid getting Herceptin before anything important the next couple months (like skiing over winter break :-).  Which will be interesting since I didn't ski once last year!)

Hopefully I will connect this week with Walt Carney at Oncogene Science in Cambridge.  I want to talk to him about monitoring approaches for potential recurrences.   When I interviewed him for the story in the Scene, he was kind enough to offer to talk to me anytime about my own situation.  We traded emails last week regarding finding a time to have a phone conversation.

On November 22nd it will be one year since my diagnosis.  It seems like forever ago.

November 3, 2005

I asked my oncologist if I could get triple doses of Herceptin every three weeks instead of a single dose each week.  Many of the women on the Her2 website I talk to get their maintenance Herceptin that way.  I asked those women if the side effects were much different and they had nothing remarkable to report.  My doc said triple doses are fine, so today that's what I got.  It will be so much better going in every three weeks.  The cardiac toxicity risks are a bit higher, so I need to go in for regular echocardiograms to be monitor my heart function.  It will certainly make things easier for at least two out of every three weekends :-)

A woman from the UK with breast cancer who was a frequent visitor to one of the UK breast cancer sites lost her battle with breast cancer last Friday.  Her daughter posted this news to the site so everyone would know what happened.  The woman chose an amazing passage for her family and friends to read in her memory.  I am sure they found it very comforting.  I (of course) cried when I read it, but it is so inspirational that I wanted to record it on this site.  Here it is:

All is Well. Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, that we still are. Call me by my old familiar name, speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Pray, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was, let it be spoken without effect without the trace of a shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was; there is unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well.

Henry Scott Holland
1847-1918
Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral