Round #3 - Halfway to Chemo Finish

I'm feeling prepared for Round #3.  Round #2 was definitely better than Round #1 but also a little different.  More like a roller coaster.  I felt the same crash on day 4 but recovered on day 5 only to crash again with horrible gastric acid issues on Day 6.  Felt pretty puny until about day 9.

Thankfully had a good discussion with Medical Oncologist about those issues.  I said I'm scared I'm going to leave chemo this time with an awful ulcer.  He's response.  "Yes that happens sometimes." Gee thanks Doc.  So game plan now is daily Prilosec for the 10-14 days and supplement with Maalox or Pepcid.  Anything to keep acid down.  I warned him I have tickets to Hamilton on Day 9 so I better feel good.  Now he's got an ulcer. 😉

Thought I might write a little bit about why at Stage 1 breast cancer I am having chemo.  Seems appropriate when the news is covering a study that is giving hope to many to avoid chemo for early stage breast cancer.

Breast cancer isn't just one type of cancer.  You'd think after years of the Pink October most of us would know that but the Pink really isn't about education it's all about making money.

My tumor has several characteristics that demonstrate it was aggressive in nature.  Personally now that I've had two aggressive cancers, I'm starting to question all of the evenings chanting Be Aggressive - Be -Be Aggressive B-E-A-GG-RESS-IVE on sidelines. Obviously my cells were listening.

First of all my Tumor Grade was 3 - which means my cells looked really f'd up under a microscope.

Second my Ki67 markers were extremely high Ki-67. The more positive cells there are, the more quickly they are dividing and forming new cells. In breast cancer, a result of less than 10% is considered low, 10-20% borderline, and high if more than 20%. My % was 62.

Finally, my tumor was (notice I use "was" thanks to clear margins and no lymph node involvement) ER-,PR- and HER2+ which means tumor was not hormone receptor positive but HER2+ which is a protein that can be treated successfully with targeted therapy.

Even if I had chosen to do a mastectomy I would have still been required to do chemo so for me breast conserving surgery (lumpectomy) + chemo + radiation is the recommended option and one I was confident in choosing.