Friday, July 11, 2014

"Five Hundred, Twenty Five Thousand, Six Hundred Minutes"

Ever since meeting my oncologist in Fredericksburg yesterday and receiving my 52 week chemotherapy plan, I can't get that iconic Rent song, "Seasons of Love" out of my head.  "How do you measure, measure a year?"  It's quite an odd feeling to know that I have a group of people, a great team of caring doctors and nurses, looking for me every Thursday for the next 52 weeks.  And then, after one year, they will continue to treat me with radiation and anti-hormonal therapy.  I knew that my treatment plan would be a long road, but seeing it with actual dates was just another step of embracing my identity as a cancer patient.  I feel like I owe myself a new luggage set - is there a registry for this type of thing?

I really love my doctor because he knows his stuff, but he dropped Harry Connick, Jr.'s name to discuss my type of cancer with me.  Any doctor that will put the mental picture of a handsome man like that in my anxious-filled mind gets an A in my book.

I have Stage IIB Adjuvant Invasive Ductive Carcinoma, HER2-positive breast cancer.  Clinicians describe HER2-positive breast cancer "as a breast cancer that tests positive for a protein called human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), which promotes the growth of cancer cells."  Not that long ago, women like me were given much lower odds in chances that the cancer wouldn't come back and thus lower chances of survival.  Thanks to a UCLA researcher, Dr. Dennis Slamon (played by Harry Connick, Jr. in the movie, Living Proof), the ground-breaking drug Herceptin was developed to reduce the aggressive nature of this cancer-producing protein.  I was amazed and grateful to learn that because of funding from the cosmetic giant Revlon and the famous "Fire and Ice" ball started by Lilly Tartikoff, wife of NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff, who died of cancer in 1997, Herceptin was made possible.

So, how do you measure a year?  I guess I'll take it a week at a time and see how it goes.  I think a trip to LA, with my new luggage set, sounds good to me ;-)




2 comments:

  1. I love you. And if you want company on that trip to LA, you know where to find me. ;)

    "In daylights, in sunsets
    In midnights, in cups of coffee
    In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife"

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