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stakebaitGood news on the Mom of Mer cancer health front, and a reminder to myself why I'm grateful to live in these times, even with all that's scary and sad:
Mom is getting another preventative drug, called Herceptin. Until very recently, it was only prescribed for people with more advanced disease, which hers, thank goodness, isn't. We tried to get her into a clinical trial for giving it to people with earlier stages, but failed because her tumor wasn't quite big enough and her nodes were clean.
However the trial ended early, because the results were so positive and they wanted to give it to the control group too. Herceptin lowered the risk of recurrence by 53 percent! (in her category, at least.) So now her oncologist called her up and said "I want you to take this too."
It means one more year before the active stage of treatment is over, which is a little hard, but apparently the side effects are minimal and she can halve her risk of it coming back.
I'll take it. And I couldn't have taken it this time last year. I'm sorry for my aunt and grandmother and all the other women who died of breast cancer before this drug was invented and tested, but I am grateful to live now, and grateful that in some areas we really do make progress.
Mom is getting another preventative drug, called Herceptin. Until very recently, it was only prescribed for people with more advanced disease, which hers, thank goodness, isn't. We tried to get her into a clinical trial for giving it to people with earlier stages, but failed because her tumor wasn't quite big enough and her nodes were clean.
However the trial ended early, because the results were so positive and they wanted to give it to the control group too. Herceptin lowered the risk of recurrence by 53 percent! (in her category, at least.) So now her oncologist called her up and said "I want you to take this too."
It means one more year before the active stage of treatment is over, which is a little hard, but apparently the side effects are minimal and she can halve her risk of it coming back.
I'll take it. And I couldn't have taken it this time last year. I'm sorry for my aunt and grandmother and all the other women who died of breast cancer before this drug was invented and tested, but I am grateful to live now, and grateful that in some areas we really do make progress.
