Round Two

First I'd like to apologize:  I'm sorry!  I stopped writing just when things were looking good, and that's not fair.
So, to catch everyone up, I had a great year.  After my move to Chicago the doctors at the University of Chicago Medical Center, headed up by Dr. Olopade, aggressively secured a plan of attack using the drugs Herceptin,  Tycurb, and Xeloda (yum yum). The side effects of these drugs were fairly mild... tingling, soreness, and burning in my hands and feet, crazy diarrhea, and some faint stands of weakness (know around my house as lazy sweat-pant days). Within six months my cancer was pronounced as NED (no evidence of disease).  I was thrilled, we were all thrilled, and honestly quite stunned.  Well that party lasted another seven, neigh, eight months.

In early December a test came back inconclusive.  There was showing of a new lesion in my vertebra, however it's growth was oddly shaped, not spherical like most cancers.  My doctor took this to mean it was just normal hyper cells.  AAAAAHH! He was wrong.

Yesterdays results showed the following:
"Today's CT portion grossly demonstrates multiple osseous sclerotic foci compatible with metastatic disease.  These are seeen in the right 6th rib and multiple thoracolumbar verebral bodies.  Small/mildly enlarged left supraclavicular lymph nodes have increased in size compared to the prior exam.  Mild retroperitoneal and left common iliac chain lymphadenopathy is present.  The right common iliac chain lymph node appears slightly larger.  A new hypoattenuating lesion in the lateral segment of the left liver lobe is seen.  A nodule in the upper right bottock appears new."

AND BREATH... but not done

Today's PET examination demonstrates moderate to marked hypermetabolic activity in the T10 vertebral body.  There is new focus of hypermetabolic activity in the L2 vertebral body.  A new focus of hypermetabolic activity is also seen in the right posterolateral 6th rib.  New moderate to marked hypermetabolic activity in multiple retroperitoneal and left common iliac chain lymph node are sespicious.  A new focus of hypermetabolic activity corresponding to the nodule int he subcutaneous tissues of the right upper bottock is suspicious for metastatic disease."

AND DONE

In summery, the damn thing is back and my drugs have stopped working.

However, there is good news.  A new drug called T-DM1, or the "magic bullet" (no really that's it's nick-name, ladies) just got FDA approval last month and is shown to be 25 percent more effective than the old crap I was taking.  When my insurance stops peddling about, hopefully by next week, I'll be ridding the T train for as long as it will have me.  Fingers crossed people, I need to this work for a very long time.  Until then, I'm drug free for the first time in almost two years.  I have to say it feels pretty good.