It's All About How You Look At It

Yesterday Randy and I received the test results, the biopsy cells were exactly the same as the 2006 cancer cells; I have breast cancer with mets to the liver.

I am not writing the Yahoo! post I had hoped to write but I am turning this into a Yahoo! post:

1. Yahoo! It is not primary cancer to the liver.
2. Yahoo! There are chemo drugs and Herceptin to attack the tumors.
3. Yahoo! Dr. Patel is optimistic.
4. Yahoo! Because of Herceptin Germaine has lived twelve years after mets to the liver for the second time; she gives me hope and inspiration. I will now take Herceptin for the rest of my life and that makes me feel more secure.
5. Yahoo! I'm being considered for a Phase III Clinical Trial (more about that later).
6. Yahoo! It's not a fatal car accident.
7. Yahoo! I've done this before and I can do it again. Some of us get to put on our boxing gloves and get into the ring more than others.
8. Yahoo! My employer is fine with me taking six months and longer if needed off work (they want me back!!!).
9. Yahoo! I have family and friends - a wonderful support system.
10. Yahoo! I'll be bald during the summer rather than during the winter when my head could freeze.
11. Yahoo! I won't have to shave my legs this summer.
12. Yahoo! I will save money by not purchasing hair products and monthly hair cuts.
13. Yahoo! I'm already planning a celebration cruise for 2010.

By now I am sure you have got the idea, instead of dwelling on the negative I chose to focus on the positive.

I learned yesterday that my HER3 may be playing a part in the cancer; no I did not make a mistake, HER3. First of all there is HER1, HER2, HER3, and HER4; I only knew about HER2. It seems as though some HER2 positive women have an onery HER3 which sends encouraging communication to HER2. A drug has been developed to stop the HER3 gene from being so supportive of HER2 and that drug is in Phase III of Clinical Trial.

Coordinating the trials in the US is the drug company which produces Herceptin (for new readers, Herceptin attacks the HER2 gene) and the founding researchers located in Germany. Today my cancer cells were sent to Germany for HER2 confirmation and HER3 testing. If I am also HER3 positive I have a chance as being admitted into the trial and if admitted I have a 50 percent chance of receiving the drug (50 percent of the participants will receive a placebo - it's like a coin toss).

I have a lot of reseach to do and I will share what I learn but there's another Yahoo!. If this is the drug trial I think it is, in Europe the drug performed so wonderfully that by Phase III the researhers determined they could not in good faith deny the drug to the women who were being given the placebo and they began giving those women the trial drug. Yahoo!

So what do I want to share with you today? Find and list every Yahoo! in your life they are there - it's all about how you look at it.

Oh yes, I start chemo in eight days - I will write more about that later.