September 14th update

Friday Nancy completed the radiation therapy on S2.  We then went to Dr Anthony's office and had a review.  It was determined that the pain medication system was no longer needed.....which is good news.  Nancy now has no scheduled appointments until Sept 23rd.  Hopefully she can rest as the radiation makes you very tired.  Your support continues to be wonderful, thank you!

September 9th update

Nancy had her Doctor appointment today.  No chemo was given.  Her labs were good.  The genomic tests are now back and she is positive for Her2Neu.  That is what Dr Anthony was hoping.  The cancer has changed and this gives him the most options to treat Nancy.  This will not change anything in the near term.  Nancy will have radiation this week, a break, then the same chemo for some period of time.  We will learn more about Her2 in the next few weeks......but this is good news.

September 3-7 update

Nancy started the week (Tuesday due to the holiday)  at Dr Anthony's.  After labs and review, they chose to give Nancy a chemo treatment.  Wednesday Nancy had the MRI of the S2 area.  Thursday she then met with Dr Call and he confirmed that the S2 needed treatment (The concern is that if they did not radiate that this nerve pressure could become permanent).  So they got her set up with a fitting for the radiation (2 more spot tatoos).  They set up a schedule for 10 treatments (daily except weekends) starting Tuesday, Sept.10th. By the end of the day Nancy was in bad pain again, so Thursday night she was hooked to a portable pain med machine.  Friday morning she was still in too much pain so we visited Dr Anthony's to get the machine cranked up a little.  After further review and discussion, the decision was made to start radiation now.....so Friday afternoon at 5:30 Nancy had her first treatment.  It was also decided to double the amount of radiation and be done in 5 treatments.  Nancy resumes treatments on Tuesday and ends Friday Sept 13th. This weekend Nancy has rested and the pain machine is doing a good job. 

This is the hardest couple of weeks Nancy has had in some time.  Both Cindy Lupton and Patsy Enkema have been unbelievable support and help.  Thank you!

Monday we start at Dr Anthony's for a review.  No chemo now until after radiation.  It is possible the genomic testing results will be done.  Then Tuesday-Friday at 2:30 daily she will have radiation.  The week  of Sept 16th (in theory) Nancy will have no scheduled medical appointments.

Thanks to all for wonderful help and support.        

August 31st update

First things first, Happy Birthday Todd, who is 34 today!

Yesterday Nancy's pain returned in a fairly big way.  So we spent 5 hours at the Doctors and here are the findings:

-Nancy had another scan

-after 3 phone calls with the scan interpreter in Arizona......they found a shadow of a new spot in Nancy's S2 part of her spine.......that appeared to be pressing against the nerve there.  This could be the cause of all the pain.  It would show up completely better on an MRI.  The MRI given to Nancy last week stopped at S1;  so they just missed seeing it.  They put Nancy on turbo steroids and bed rest for the next few days. 

-Tuesday is supposed to be chemo day.  However, if Nancy is not better, they may want to spot radiate the S2.  They would determine that after another MRI.  The tricky part of this is that radiation would mean no chemo again for some time........and we know the cancer regained some momentum after no chemo for 2 months. 

We will know more after Tuesday.  Due to schedule, the blog may not be updated until Friday of next week........

Your support is special.  Thanks to all!  Happy Labor Day weekend!

August 27th update

One comment left off yesterday.......  there is the question of whether Nancy will lose her hair again on the restart of chemo.  Nobody seems to know.......guess we just wait and see.

August 26th update

Nancy had her review with the Doctor today.  Note: the past week has been very hard for Nancy; needing IV pain meds twice and no energy at all.  After review, here is the status:

-the biopsies all came back positive, which means the breast cancer has now spread to the skin and in more than one area.  (Had it been in one area, radiation was a possible treatment...that is now off the table).  This means the treatment for the skin must be for her whole system.

-the PET scan results were back and there are 2 new spots of cancer, a new one in the liver and a spot on a right-side rib.  The cancer is active.

-The genomic testing to see if the cancer has changed structurally is not done yet and may be another week.

-Dr. Anthony restarted Nancy today on the same chemo she was on 2 months ago.  There is a recommended lifetime amount one should take of this med and Nancy will be exceeding that amount after 4 more treatments.  This drug has been around a long time and Dr Anthony has done this before under these circumstances.  Nancy needs the cancer less active and the skin treated now.  So here we go again, 3 weeks of one treatment per week on, then one week off. 

-Nancy felt good about this plan.  She was relieved to get going again on treating the cancer. 

-No firm date was established for the how long we will be on this plan.

-All her lab numbers were in range.

I hope this makes sense, and thanks for all the wonderful support!

August 16th update

SBRT is done.  Nancy now gets off until next Thursday, when she will have the PET scan.  I little rest from medical is a good thing.  There will be no updates probably until after the 8/26 Doctor's appointment.  Your support is special, thanks.

I know this blog is about Nancy, however Todd, our oldest, bought a medical trials company in Austin Texas.  Our whole family is excited about this venture!