Meh, Just One More, Pshhhh

Funny when one more brain tumor isn’t a big deal, but in some circumstances, it certainly could be worse. My oncologist moved up my brain MRI because I am fussing about the fact that we aren’t treating my brain right now. This stresses the tar out of me, but I also know that we have options on keeping my brain stable outside of chemo (radiation is the preferred treatment). I also know I don’t have a lot of options for treating my brain since I recently failed the major one (but maybe when I am on a lot more narcotics tummy issues will be less of an “issue” – it is what I am telling myself).

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As me about metastatic breast cancer, or breast cancer, or just ask me stuff

The main area of concern was the spotty area that caused me to get the spinal tap. I came back negative for lepto-meningeal mets, so the assumption is, they are brain mets – a whole bunch of little tumors in one area. Well… good news came back that they did not grow since my last scan. They just hung out and did nothing. Which is why we are “yay’ing” – ish. A bunch of little tumors are hard to target with SRS. My oncologist didn’t release my MRI for me to read until she sees me in person Thursday, so… she forgot, or she is messing with my tumor riddled braaaiiinnsss and is going to make me wait until we meet to chat about the whole thing.

My tumors that were treated with SRS are either still shrinking or staying the same size, so I am still responding well to radiation. This means it can continue to be a good choice, especially for the fact that I now have a 3 mm tumor in my left frontal lobe (so now I have one in right frontal lobe, one in left, and a whole bunch of buddies in my cerebellum). I needed one on each side. I like symmetry… or something like that.

My metastatic breast cancer tumor markers

My metastatic breast cancer tumor markers

My tumor markers dropped another 20ish points. I had the nurse grab them Monday when I was there for my MRI. Taxotere is still doing it’s job on it’s own. Which is a good thing!

Since my heart hasn’t improved (based on my mugga results). My oncologist wants me to start seeing a cardiologist to put me on medications to improve my heart so that I can start my HER2+ medications. I was even approved by my insurance company to go back on Perjeta since we didn’t stop it for very long (I was very stressed that we knocked Perjeta out of my options and we don’t know if it had stopped working). Insurance usually requires that Perjeta be your first line of treatment, since our little experiment with Xeloda and Tykerb was so short lived, it wasn’t like I was really off the stuff for very long. Plus I had heart issues causing a pause. My oncologist has been consulting with the cardiologist and I may get the full chemo cocktail on Thursday (chemo = Taxotere & HER2+ meds = Perjeta & Herceptin), none of this cocktail is known to work directly on the brain, so this is still a focus on getting my body under control.

I was pondering if I should take up running to help my heart, of course with a bad heart that isn’t good either. I hate running. Oh boy do I hate running. There are a lot of lovely hikes in the area, I don’t love hiking, but maybe I should teach myself to love hiking. Maybe I should start with that whole “walking” thing… Mike has been teaching Kira to be a good leash dog (Zack and Dante are awful).

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I expect to get a lot more exercise in St. Thomas (we leave soon!) and I did a whole lot of yoga last month (I was sad I was doing more gentle yoga, but pain kicked in with the harder stuff. Baby steps…). One day at a time, one day at a time.

But hey, I only have one new brain tumor, so, yay-ish.

Author: Mandi

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