Brooke has her first chemo treatment tomorrow. After seeing Dr. Bott last week, she made the decision to have the treatments done locally, so it all begins tomorrow at noon at American Fork hospital.
Dr. Bott's treatment recommendations were identical to Dr. Prystas. Chemo will be every three weeks with the first six treatments involving three drugs: taxotere, carboplatin, and herceptin. After the first six treatments, she will continue to get herceptin every three weeks for a total of one year. Treatments will be about four hours long with all three drugs, and only about an hour with just the herceptin.
The first two drugs are the ones with all of the rotten side effects you think of with chemotherapy. We're told that the herceptin doesn't have any of those side effects, so even though she will continue to have treatments, she should start feeling better after the six treatments (her hair should start growing back then too). She will also take an anti-estrogen pill daily for five years.
The visit with Dr. Bott was mostly a repeat of things we'd heard before, but there were a couple of things that were new or different. One of the things that was a bit different was the way he analyzed/explained the prognosis going forward.
He said that if Brooke did nothing more after the surgery, there is a 45 - 50% chance that the cancer could come back in ten years. With chemotherapy the chances of recurrence drop roughly in half (he put it at about 22%). The yearlong herceptin treatments cut the chances in half again (11% now), and the anti estrogen pill brings it down a few more notches. So, after all of the treatments, he puts the chance of recurrence within 10 years at around 7 - 10%, which obviously sounds a whole lot better than 50 - 50.
He said that if Brooke did nothing more after the surgery, there is a 45 - 50% chance that the cancer could come back in ten years. With chemotherapy the chances of recurrence drop roughly in half (he put it at about 22%). The yearlong herceptin treatments cut the chances in half again (11% now), and the anti estrogen pill brings it down a few more notches. So, after all of the treatments, he puts the chance of recurrence within 10 years at around 7 - 10%, which obviously sounds a whole lot better than 50 - 50.
One other thing we hadn't heard before is that Brooke will need an echocardiogram every three months as long as she is still getting herceptin. It can have some side effects on the heart, but all doctors have told us that if you stop the drug, the problems are reversible.
We talked through the chemo schedule with the doctor and the nurse, trying to figure out the best way to move ahead and still allow Brooke to feel as well as possible for some key dates, most importantly being Jake's wedding on December 28th. They don't typically want to deviate much from the every-three-week routine, but we worked out a schedule that looks like this:
Treatment 1 - November 15
Treatment 2 - December 6
Treatment 3 - December 31 (three weeks and a few days that should allow her to be at her peak for the wedding)
Treatment 4 - January 17 (2 1/2 weeks to get her back on schedule)
Treatment 5 - February 7
Treatment 6 - February 29
So, that's the plan. Brooke has felt much better these last couple of weeks and has been able to do a lot more. This last Sunday was an especially good day for her. It was her birthday, and she enjoyed the day, but probably even more important to her, she was able to go to church and lead the music for the Primary program during sacrament meeting, then stay through Primary and be the Primary chorister for the first time in about 6 weeks. She was able to explain to the children why she hadn't been there and how things were going to be for the next few months until she could return full time. She assured them how much she loved them and would miss them and there were many tears shed. There were a lot of expressions of love for her and it was a very nice day.
Thanks, as always, for your thoughts and prayers for Brooke. We'll keep you posted as chemo begins.
Best-
John
We talked through the chemo schedule with the doctor and the nurse, trying to figure out the best way to move ahead and still allow Brooke to feel as well as possible for some key dates, most importantly being Jake's wedding on December 28th. They don't typically want to deviate much from the every-three-week routine, but we worked out a schedule that looks like this:
Treatment 1 - November 15
Treatment 2 - December 6
Treatment 3 - December 31 (three weeks and a few days that should allow her to be at her peak for the wedding)
Treatment 4 - January 17 (2 1/2 weeks to get her back on schedule)
Treatment 5 - February 7
Treatment 6 - February 29
So, that's the plan. Brooke has felt much better these last couple of weeks and has been able to do a lot more. This last Sunday was an especially good day for her. It was her birthday, and she enjoyed the day, but probably even more important to her, she was able to go to church and lead the music for the Primary program during sacrament meeting, then stay through Primary and be the Primary chorister for the first time in about 6 weeks. She was able to explain to the children why she hadn't been there and how things were going to be for the next few months until she could return full time. She assured them how much she loved them and would miss them and there were many tears shed. There were a lot of expressions of love for her and it was a very nice day.
Thanks, as always, for your thoughts and prayers for Brooke. We'll keep you posted as chemo begins.
Best-
John
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