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Friday, September 17, 2010

Second Radiation and Herceptin

Today I had an appointment at 9am at the hospital down in Madision for my first infusion of Herceptin. I was given this drug last year as well and altough you can have an allergic reaction to it the first infusion, I did not have a problem. So I thought I would be fine today. However, it did not turn out that way. About 40 min into the infusion I started having some chest pain. I couldn't breathe in deep without pain and coughing. Then I started to get cold and started shaking. At this point I decided I needed to let the nurse know what was going on. By then it had been an hour into the infusion. When she got into the room I was shaking really bad... full body convulsions. I was afraid that I was going to have a heart attack or seizure. It was really scary, but the nurse stopped the infusion and injected me with benadryl and another allergy medication. 
The benadryl knocks me out so I had to lay down and do deep breathing. After a bit I finally got the shakes to stop. They observed me for an hour and sent me on to the other side of Madison for radiation. Since I was not able to finish Herceptin I will have to go in next week sometime to finish it.
I will have radiation everyday up to 5 1/2 weeks depending on how my body reacts. They did give me a stronger pain medication and something to help with the muscle spasms during radiation. So I will be trying that Monday and praying it works.
My oncologist spoke to me today and told me that our goal is to stop the cancer on the chest with radiation and if we could control the spot in the liver then in 6 months to a year we can remove it as long as there are no other spots where the cancer has spread.
She says the goal is still cure... I was confused by this. I was under the impression that once the cancer matastisis(spreads to other parts) and you are in stage IV then you are not curable.
She said that there are some very rare cases where women with only one spot where the cancer has spread that were able to be cured.
Although I know this is super rare it is something to hope for.

1 comment:

  1. Mel,
    I really appreciate you taking the time to blog and keep us informed! I know it has to be hard for you! Always praying for your cure!!!
    Love, Danielle

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