I'm BAAAA-AAAACK!!!

So it's been a while...I'm still here, still hanging in.  Last blog post was months ago and lots has happened.  Here it goes:

I was in the new clinical trial for 5 months.  Let me just say that the Taxol/Aurora Kinase inhibitor trial kicked my ass.  I was neutropenic, anemic, and basically would sleep all the time due to crazy fatigue.  At one point I was doing 3-4 shots of Neupogen a week just to get me to the next weekly treatment.  It was crazy.  But it worked!  I had two great CT scans and then went back to see Dr. Curly to see if I could revisit the liver resection.

In the meantime, I had a biopsy on my right breast where I had a lump.  You guessed it...malignant.  So I had another primary tumor in my right breast, but luckily had not traveled to my lymph nodes.  I also had a small lump biopsied under my left armpit...malignant too!  Wow!  

Fast forward to August 6 at MD Anderson.  I had my liver resection, right mastectomy, and the left underarm lump removed (they also removed my gallbladder).  8 hours of surgery, 3 surgeons, and little ole me.  It all went well and I stayed in the hospital for 6 days.  Nothing exciting in the hospital except for lots of nausea, some pain, and LOTS of sleep.  So here I am today almost 6 weeks out from my surgery.

They seemed to have got all the cancer that we could find.  So now I'm considered NED which means "no evidence of disease".  Yay!  Do they consider me cured?  No.  Will the cancer come back?  Who knows.  If it does, when?  Anytime, except if I make it 3 years out from the surgery with no disease then my chances of it coming back diminish significantly according to MD Anderson statistics.  

So today I started my new, post-surgery treatment.  I will be on monthly Zoladex injections to put me in menopause and monthly Faslodex injections to prevent Estrogen from binding to any cancer in my body.  Faslodex is not a chemo, its an anti-hormonal.  I won't lose my hair.  Yay!  Hopefully this will keep the cancer away.  

Until then I get to live life and take things day by day.  My next CT scans aren't scheduled until December and until then I say, "ignorance is bliss."  

Sorry for being gone so long...I hope to be much more frequent about things happening in my life and with my non-profit, Suites of Hope.  I'll save Suites of Hope for next time!