I had a dream

To quote from the Broadway show "Gypsy" --

I dreamed I was watching pieces of my life being boxed up and thrown out. First I was in the hallway, saying that I needed those boxes, don't move them. Then I was outside watching belted trunks begin tossed around.

I think this is both emblematic of the stress I feel and a reaction to the way cancer appears to be taking over my life. I almost said taking over my life again, because of course this has happened many times over the past nine years. In stead of sitting quietly on a merry-go-round bench, I'd suddenly be thrust upon a pony, hanging on for dear life while it went madly up and down.

I'm not much on dream interpretation. Are the boxes parts of my life I've had to give up? If so, hat are they? I'm still singing an I even danced last weekend. I thought I gave up on the parenting dream years ago. My health is what it is; sometimes I feel okay, sometimes great, sometimes like crap.

Maybe the boxes represent giving up hope that I could continue to ride the metastatic breast cancer merry-go-round even longer than I already have. I confess that I feel my mortality even more so this past week than in recent months. Learning that I have new mets everywhere was daunting. There just aren't too many treatment options left to me.

Dr G says that one just has to live long enough for the next new thing to come along. That next new thing may likely be Afinitor, presuming the FDA approves its use in metastatic breast cancer.


(Pertuzumab is a different drug. You may have heard about Darlene Grant, the woman with mets who believes that pertuzumab could extend her life and appealed via YouTube for compassionate use. Pertuzumab is designed to treat HER2neu+ cancer. We'll see what the results of yesterday's biopsy show, but my cancer has been HER2neu- until now.)

** Today's update on Afinitor: Dr G's nurse says that he had the peer to peer review with my health insurance company and then asked her to contact Novartis, maker of Afinitor, for more information. Rik also faxed my application to Novartis for financial assistance in receiving Afinitor.

Quick update

It's been doctors, doctors, doctors for days now.

Today I saw the dermatologist, who took biopsy samples from the scalp lesion (which was biopsied in 2010, but has regrown) and from a mole on my right breast. He thinks the odds of the mole being melanoma are small, but still... The scalp biopsy was my idea. It's possible that my cancer has changed from highly ER+/PR+ and Her2 neu negative. The last time we did this, in 2010, nothing had changed. But still my cancer had stopped responding to the estrogen blockers. Retesting has the potential to give me more treatment options.

Then it was off to see the naturopath, who didn't change my supplements but recommended StressArrest (mostly niacin and pantothic acid, from what I can tell). My stress level has been climbing and I might be on the verge of a depression.  I also left a message for my shrink.

Yesterday's medical trip involved unclotting my port. On Monday I went to the UW Hospital to give a blood sample for genetic testing for the BRCA 1 and 2 genes. (Again, I was tested in 2002 and came up negative, but the technology has improved in the interim and the test is evidently more sensitive now.) The nurses there were unable to get blood return from my port, and I didn't have time to come back at 4:30 PM for a few hours while they gave me alteplase to dissolve a clot in the port. So on Tuesday I went to Dr G's office. The nurses couldn't get good blood return either on the first try, so they gave me alteplase and voila! two hours later, I was fine.

I also learned yesterday that Dr G was scheduled to participate in a peer to peer review of my need for Afinitor (everolimus) and why my insurance company should pay for it. I haven' heard the results of that call, but interested parties can read about the study confirming its efficacy here. (This link may be for subscribers only, but you can google the title: "Everolimus in Postmenopausal Hormone-Receptor–Positive Advanced Breast Cancer.")

All this medical makes me stressed. Yesterday's therapy was to get in bed at the end of the afternoon and pull the covers over my head (denial). That didn't work too well. This afternoon I worked in the garden for an hour or so (avoidance). Pulling weeds was more therapeutic, but I still wonder if I am on the verge of depression. Tonight I sang with my choir Dunava and that was the best medicine of all. Singing lifts me out of myself.

Now I am tired but it's a good tired. On to more tomorrow.