Let me first apologize for not updating the blog lately. There just hasn’t been much to update y’all on, but today I have a lot of GOOD news to share!

No More Chemo!

As many of y’all know, mom went in for her FINAL round of chemotherapy on January 20th. This means she got to wake everyone in the chemo room up so she could ring the bell!

Please note her weird face as she rings the bell. It’s kind of awesome.

This was a special round of chemo because Sadie was able to take the day off work and drive from Oklahoma! It was a bit anticlimactic as she rang the bell and we thanked all of the nurses since she would still be back in the same room every three weeks for the Herceptin + Perjecta infusions. But she doesn’t have to have that dang Taxotere anymore, so we wanted to celebrate the ending of that nightmare!

Mom handled chemo pretty well. It wreaked havoc on her, both physically and mentally, but she pulled through and is excited that there’s a light at the end of this tunnel.

Scan Results

Last Friday, mom had another CT scan and breast ultrasound done. We just got the results yesterday, and guys, it’s good news! The tumors are smaller. The surgeon said that the liver tumor, which is the biggest threat to her life, has shrunken significantly since her halfway-through-chemo scans nine weeks ago. He said that there’s not a whole lot of it left. We are so happy about this! The tumors are smaller, no new ones have shown up, and we can move on to the next step!

Mom has an oncology appointment on Friday before her first chemo-less infusion. In this appointment, Dr. Juvvadi will go over her scan results and let her know if there will be any changes to her treatment plan that we’ve already discussed based on the scans. I assume that there won’t be any changes, but I’ll be sure to let y’all know if there are!

Treatment Plan

We’ll know for sure after tomorrow when mom meets with the oncologist, but this is the current plan:

• Infusions of Herceptin and Perjeta every three weeks for at least a year – These should only take about an hour or two, so she won’t have to be there all day like she would be for chemo. They also won’t deplete her white blood cells or (hopefully) result in many symptoms. She’ll grow her hair back and get to go back to work!
• Estrogen blocking drug – Since the cancer cells are estrogen receptor positive, she will need a drug that makes it to where the cancer cells can’t get the estrogen they need to grow. We’re not sure which hormone therapy she’ll be given, but we’ll find that out tomorrow. The doctor wanted to put her on Tamoxifen, but since she had a blood clot at the beginning of all of this, she can’t use that drug because it increases your chance of blood clots. She will be put on another drug that will decrease her production of estrogen.
• Surgery – Mom will have a lumpectomy to remove the tumor in her breast. The surgeon, Dr. Clifford, will also take out several of her lymph nodes. Since everyone’s lymph node count is different, we don’t know how many he will take. Dr. Clifford will also remove the remaining tumor in mom’s liver. We are so grateful that with the help of a robot, he will be able to operate on the liver tumor. Many liver tumors are inoperable because the liver is so vascular. Luckily, the location of mom’s tumor is not too dangerous for operation.
• Radiation – After surgery, Dr. Clifford says mom will have 6 weeks of daily rounds of radiation to the breast/lymph node areas. She’ll go every weekday for 30 minutes for 6 weeks. That will either happen post surgery or post treatment in about a year. We have to meet with the radiation oncologist to know the specifics.

Wait … Did you say lumpectomy?

So up until this post, we were all thinking: double mastectomy, lymph nodes, liver, reconstruction, and no radiation. We had just thought that gave her the best prognosis. The surgeon recommends that she actually does a lumpectomy to just remove the tumor in the right breast instead of a full mastectomy, and to leave the left breast alone.The reason for this is because a lumpectomy is a lot less invasive surgery with a shorter recovery time. Also, data shows that the chances of recurrence are only very, very minimally less with a mastectomy.

Being told she was going to have a lumpectomy was a little uncomfortable. Somehow we thought everything would be better if both of her breasts were gone. The doctor gave her the option to have the lumpectomy or the double mastectomy, but he strongly encourages the lumpectomy. This means that he can do all three surgeries at one time and have one recovery. Her breast will not be deformed after, and she won’t have to have any reconstructive surgery. She’ll only need about 10 days to recover from the surgeries, and then she can get back to work. If she decided to do the double mastectomy, it would be in three different surgeries since they couldn’t do the mastectomy, lymph nodes, and liver together. Then she’d have to have reconstruction done later as well, making it three surgeries as opposed to one. The recovery time would be a lot longer as well.

Dr. Clifford explained to us that the breast tumor isn’t a threat to mom’s life. Her liver tumor is what is threatening her life. If the breast tumor comes back, she will be having regular scans and will be able to proceed with a mastectomy at that point if necessary, although the chances are low. It’s if the liver tumor comes back that is the real problem. Because of that, he doesn’t think a lumpectomy vs. mastectomy changes her prognosis.

Dr. Clifford also briefly talked about mom going through radiation (see above). He claims that the radiation symptoms will not be bad, and that it will be like having a sunburn for 6 weeks. He says it will be manageable. I’m praying it’s nothing like my friend’s mom who went through intensive radiation recently and had miserable effects from it. Why can’t any part of cancer treatment just be easy? Why does it all have to suck? That’s why cancer patients are fighters. They really are. The bravery, stamina, and will it takes to go through these treatments is astounding.

We’ll find out in the next couple of days when the surgery will take place. It will likely be in the next 7- 14 days. Thank goodness, because I haven’t seen my mama in two weeks, and I miss her! This is the most we’ve gone without seeing each other since she was diagnosed. We have so much Law and Order, Snapped, and Fixer Upper to watch! Yes, I realize one of those shows is a significant outlier.

Wait … Did you say robot?

Let me just geek out for a second. Dr. Clifford and his team are going to use a surgical robot to remove the liver tumor. I am so freaking excited for this and am definitely going to ask Dr. Clifford if there is any way I can watch the surgery. These robots are SO cool and SO precise. There is a blood vessel nearby the tumor that would normally be an issue, but Dr. Clifford said because of the precision of the robot, he’s not worried about operating.

If you’re like me and love this kind of nerdy stuff, watch this video of a surgical robot peeling a grape:

and then this video of it stitching a peeled grape back together:

I can’t even. SO COOL.

 

Love to you all! I’ll post again soon!

Love,

Sydnie