Chemo plan.

The meeting with the oncologist went well yesterday. It involved intense discussions about the treatment available to me and clinical trial options but I think we have decided on our course of attack. If I have understood rightly I have been downgraded from High risk to Medium risk as a result of the good news that the lymph nodes were clear. However, they still want to give me the treatment recommended for high risk patients because I am young, had an aggressive grade 3 tumour and have a lot of years ahead of me to remain disease-free. This treatment is harder to tolerate but I will know that I am giving myself the best chance with the maximum treatment available. From what I understood the clinical trial option would provide only standard treatments and was aimed at reducing the side effects for all breast cancer sufferers rather than concentrating on the maximal hit for a younger lady such as myself.

Therefore my drugs of choice (which won't mean much to anyone I am sure) are 4 cycles of EC chemotherapy [epirubicin and cyclophosphamide] followed by 4 cycles of Taxotere. This is not set in stone I am sure and could change depending on my response. I will start this on the 9th of January. I will most likely spend most of the morning/day in clinic so they can do blood test to check my white cell count is high enough to tolerate the drugs, make up my prescription, administer it along with a saline drip over about an hour and just check I am OK afterwards I guess. They will give me anti-sickness drugs to take as well. I then get a rest period for 3 weeks to allow my white cell count to return to normal. This completes the "cycle" and I will begin with the next cycle. I am looking at 8 cycles in total with the day of treatments usually being Tuesday because they have a special chemo clinic for breast cancer sufferers on those days.

For those of you who are disgusted by my constant obsession with "colour" you may want to look away now..... Epirubicin = Red pee for 24 hours :-D