Chemo: Take #1

Well, I should back up a couple weeks to mom's last appt. with the oncologist. She had a good recovery from her 2nd surgery, was able to get rid of her friends, Thing 1 & eventually Thing 2 (the drains) without much problem. Her surgeon was around for the 1st drain removal a week after surgery, but mom saw her associate to have the 2nd removed, as the surgeon had her baby and was home recovering by then.

The post-op appt. with the oncologist was a bit more of information gathering. We do know that mom doesn't have to have radiation now. Since there was no spread to lymph nodes and the tumor wasn't that close to the chest wall, the radiation isn't needed. We got the pathology report, which unfortunately was a little hard for the oncologist to decipher. The path report from the lumpectomy that showed more tumors on the margins, had measurements of those tumor sizes. The path report from the mastectomy though, just indicated that there was residual tumor along the lumpectomy site, and there was another tumor found as well, but he did not include the sizes.....so that made things a little difficult for the oncologist to get actual tumor size. So he had to improvise and look at the MRI along with the reports to come up with tumor size, which he has estimated at about 2.7cm total. One thing the path report did have was the grading of the tumor. The grading is a 1-3 scale that determines aggressiveness of the tumor cells. The biopsy graded it at 2, but that was a changed to a 3 when they got a better look
at the cells following tumor removal. Unfortunately, 3 means they are very aggressive. But we are still good since the lymph nodes were clean. So we'll take the good! All together, that places her cancer at stage IIa. If she were to stop after surgery and do no other treatment, she has a 52% chance of it coming back. But to move on with the further treatment chemotherapy and the other drugs they have, her chances of recurrence drop to 15%....much better odds.

So that brings us to today. Chemo has officially begun. I think my mom has a great attitude. Granted, she for sure can think of lots of other things she'd rather be doing (wouldn't all the people in this infusion center concur with that?!), but she's going in with a great attitude, and plans on resting up for a few days, and then continuing on. More power to her!!!!

GO MOM!

We started today with some IV anti-nausea meds, dexamethasone(steroid), & taxotere(chemo drug. Next on the menu is Herceptin(monoclonal antibiotic), and then some carboplatin(another chemo drug). After a good 4-5 hours here, we get to then head home. My mom is going to be at home for now after this treatment. We hear that. The fatigue and side-effects will start up tomorrow, and last 2-3 days. So we'll see how this treatment goes and hope for the best.