Monday, July 27, 2009

On Hormone Therapy

After chemo, I will need to go on Tamoxifen for five years to shut down the baby maker. However, the drug brings its own set of side effects and risks that aren’t too swell. The most immediate being that Tamoxifen increases uterine lining, making the fibroid I have now grow another head or arms or possibly uterine cancer. So I might be looking at a hysterectomy somewhere after chemo and before Tamoxifen. My mom had one at my age because of a grapefruit-sized fibroid, and I have history on the other side of my family for uterine cancer, so it wouldn’t be a surprise.

I’ve also got those other two ner’ do wells, my ovaries, to consider. I need to see a geneticist to determine if my breast cancer is pals with ovarian cancer and if so I may need to have my ovaries removed. I’m not hot on that, because losing your ovaries can effect your heart. So I'd like to stop short of the full Ladiectomy.

I also asked my Oncologist about clinical trials because there is always some new therapy being tested. But it’s a crapshoot. You get entered into this pool. For example: 33% women get the new therapy, 33% get the traditional, 33% get a placebo. And well, it would suck to get the less effective treatment ’cause it’s your life we’re talking about. But there you go.

Meanwhile, we had a great weekend. Party in Uptown, camping up north. The kids had a blast. We played Ghost in the Graveyard at twilight in a big open field. Running felt great. We were all screaming and laughing in terror. The next day it was naps for the adults and over-tired tears from the kids.

Good times.

2 comments:

Jonathan Odell said...

What a roller coaster!

Jeanne said...

Some trials are about dosage or testing one drug against another--they're not all placebo/the real thing. I was on several trials and I got a real drug in all of them. With cancer, they don't like to play with life like that.