Two crappy options

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I met with my medical oncologist today. To recap, I have three docs: medical oncologist, breast specialist/surgeon (who I've been seeing since my original AHD diagnosis in 2019), and radiation oncologist. So this was my medical oncologist who looks at things from a broader perspective, and not just in the here and now, but she's also looking at preventing recurrence. 

I mentioned the Oncotype DX in my previous post. This pathology test looks at a bunch of different genetic stuff in the cancer and it all gets scored and makes some determinations about possible future reoccurrence. If you're post-menopausal, you want that score to be under 26. If you're pre-menopausal, you want that score under 15. 


Welp. That's not what we wanted. Sigh. I was given two crappy options: four rounds of chemo OR 2 years of monthly, painful injections into my stomach with a giant needle to block my ovaries from producing estrogen thereby putting me into "chemical menopause." Fun times. So I've chosen the latter. I figure at 46 I'm headed for menopause in the near future anyway. I guess I just get it early.

The doctor was actually really surprised by the score but she says that why we do this for my type of cancer, which is strongly estrogen receptor positive. In addition to this, I'll also be going on a hormone blocking medication called Tamoxifen which I'll take every day for 5 years. 

I've been pretty melancholy this afternoon. It feels like this is never ever going to end and I'm going to be living with some kind of treatment for the foreseeable future.

Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 21, 2023 at 9:52 AM

    Summer, this is not fair at all. Thank you for sharing all of this. I just want you to know I am thinking about you.

    ReplyDelete

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