Hi Friends,
Just wanted to give you an update on our visit with the Oncologist today. All in all it is very positive, and we are praising God for a good report. Keep reading for the report…
I am feeling great, and aside from some mild neuropathy I have not noticed any major side effects from the chemo. I know prayers and God’s goodness are helping me make it through. I usually feel a little tired and “blah” the first few days after chemo, but by the second and third week I’m ready to jump on the bike and ride. 
I have had three treatment cycles so far. He has me on a cocktail of Perjeta, Herceptin, and Docetaxel every three weeks.
He had the reports from my scans on Friday, but he won’t see the actual scans until tomorrow morning when he goes to conference. At that time they will be able to make some further determinations, but in the meantime the reports look very good. According to the CT scan, the tumor on my ribs has “decreased substantially” although they haven’t measured it at this point so we aren’t sure what that means. The ribs (4 and 5) have scarring from where the tumor was attached, but now they can see the ribs which is positive. The spots on my liver are “stable” so he is ordering an MRI of my liver to ensure we are actually looking at metastasis and not something else that we don’t need to keep following. The tumor marker, which was very high when we started, has decreased significantly as well. He showed us the graph, and it has gone down tremendously with the last two blood draws. Lastly he looked at the bone scan, and while it looks like there are more areas in the bones, he said this could be “flares” which happen after treatment, where it looks worse before it looks better. Again, he won’t know exactly what we are looking at in the bones until he sees the scans in conference tomorrow. He will call me in the afternoon tomorrow to let me know if we are still on course with treatment. Most likely we will continue with another 3 treatments of the same kind, with some more scans after the second one to see where we stand at that point. I’m scheduled for the next chemo on Wednesday.
Thanks again for all your prayers! I am at peace, and have no worries. God is in control… XXOO Blessings.