A Cure

Hello Dear Friends,

Recently I was asked by a friend if I was in remission. The short answer is no. The long answer is a little more difficult for people that do not have cancer to understand. I will never be told that I am cured, I will never be told that I am in remission. The only way the doctors have of knowing if I beat this cancer is when I die of something else. Nice, huh?

At first this news was hard to take but, it is the reality of things. The Drs. will never know if I have cancer cells hiding out someplace in my body waiting for their chance to multiply. I do not know my chances of developing metastatic breast cancer (stage IV), but the chance is always there. My surgeon told me today that he doubts that he got all the cancer, he said there is probably some lymph node with some cancer left in it, that cannot be helped. The Good news of it all is that the Chemo did kick some butt, it decreased the amount of live cancer in my body, the surgery took out most of the rest of it, hopefully the radiation will take care of whatever is left. And in addition to that I am on hormone therapy for at least 5 years. And as you already know I am on Herceptin for a year.

I am slowly coming to peace with the fact that I am going to spend the rest of my life with Breast Cancer looming somewheres in the background. I just hope it is a long life, after all, I have to grow old with my husband :-). In addition to that I have many other things that I wish to do in my life.

For all those that are dealing with this horrid fucking disease; know that you are a survivor from day one of your diagnosis. Know that there are 5, 10, 15, 20 plus year survivors. You will hang in there! And one day there will even be a cure. There is a breast cancer vaccine in clinical trials, I will blog about it once I have more information.

That is all for now,
-I Fight like a woman!