Last treatment ...
 

today. A huge relief, even though I will feel no different until 3-4 weeks from now - I'll have the usual post-chemo routine. Since I haven't recovered during these past two cycles I won't expect miracles right away. But knowing there won't be any more poisoning sessions is a huge psychological boost.

I still have a surgery to go, and a follow-up PET/CT to make sure the hot spots they saw last fall have gone away. Assuming all is good, I then face ten years on anti-estrogens. I have a dilemma about tamoxifen, which my onco wants to use (he won't believe my lab results that show I qualify for aromatase inhibitors; says I don't look post-menopausal). A rare complication is retinopathy that produces irreversible damage to vision. I already have had rare complications that have interfered with my vision. And I seem to be the queen of rare complications!

Not to mention all the other nasty side effects - DVT, pulmonary embolus, stroke, joint pain, muscle pain, bone marrow suppression - those are the most common ones. Oh, and cognitive effects.

Aromatase inhibitors don't have the retinopathy issue as far as I can tell, or far less anyway. They cause bad osteoporosis and high fracture risk, worse bone pain, cognitive effects. No clotting issues.

I wish I didn't have to take either one. I'm tempted to refuse. Have to find studies that compare no treatment to treatment, but they'll be old and rare - treatment is standard of care and studies only look at one treatment vs another now. Lots of women stop these drugs because of side effects but I can't find studies on them.

Back to the good part ... last chemo today!!! On to recovery!!!

Onwards, to Recovery!

I'm glad for you that this is the last one. Good luck!

Bravo, ortho. You're one tough lady.

Hooray for the last treatment! Good luck, ortho.

Don't all the studies have a control group?

*hugs*

Good luck m'dear :)

Thank you all for your good wishes! It's a big day. I may even snap a pic. :)

To answer Bruce's question, once treatment is the standard, the control group will be the current accepted treatment. Researchers won't include a non-treated group for ethical reasons if it's been concluded that treatment is a benefit. You could follow a non-treated group if you got the cooperation of people who refused standard treatment but were willing to otherwise be followed up for the same outcomes as the treated group. No one will do that study when treatment is already felt to be a benefit (although Dean Ornish managed to get control groups of coronary patients who didn't qualify for surgical treatment. It doesn't seem to be done in breast cancer research, though).

The original studies for tamoxifen and the aromatase inhibitors are what I need - how great the actual benefits are. But the control groups wouldn't be broken down into sub-groups that were careful to modify what risk factors they could; the study design would need both groups to be as homogeneous as possible.

I'd like to see how a group would do who refused the anti-estrogens but exercised, lost weight, didn't drink, followed a very low-fat whole food plant-based diet, drank green tea, included curries in their diets (curcumin is important but only works when combined with pepper and other curry spices - capsules don't work), etc. Like the Ornish studies, it would be nice to have one group follow an entire program and follow another group not on the meds but who declined (or were randomized into a control group, ideally) and followed their preferred lifestyle. The 'treatment' group would end up sub-classified according to how much of the program they followed, but also analyzed overall.

It'd be difficult to find subjects - they usually start on meds and then quit due to side effects. The fact they'd been on different meds for different times would be a confounder. It would be very very difficult to get approval for such a study. And funding - even more difficult. But I can dream ...

,,

Ha! Nice.

:)
My post was a horrible example of 'holy massiveness!'. Way TMI, sorry. Sitting here in the infusion center waiting room for 45 minutes and ... yikes.

holy massiveness was the size of the image foots first posted. You could see the individual pimples on Buzz's chin.

Yeah, I gotta remember to check image size. That was 19" across

ortho-I will never forget my last chemo treatment.

god bless and follow your gut.

I will tell you this": after chemo I could no longer write legibly and It's difficult to keyboard. Also, I've gone thru menopause twice. And Im more depressed than ever feeling like a 70 year old in a 48 year old body.

I DID to to a foot doc who helped me a lot with calf pain post chemo (I would hobble like a 90 year old until about 2pm) and I'm still fooking tired.

I want to be a vegetable. I don't care which one...maybe a yam.

I hear you. I feel like chemo has taken ten years from me - I hope my energy level returns, but if I do the anti-estrogen meds I'll have the bone and joint pain to look forward to. Not pessimistic, just realistic. Since my onco has warned me repeatedly about it, it will be an issue. He's otherwise very close-mouthed about side effects.

I'm going to lose all my fingernails, ironically AFTER I finish treatment. Nothing to be done. So far my neuropathy is all sensory, not motor, so I hope it stays that way after this final session.

I hear you.
If you don't mind my asking, did you decide to go on tamoxifen?

i'llget bacl tp upi after I mournmy dog

Tril, take care of yourself. Please, just take care of yourself. And don't mix meds with alcohol.

Not at all, I really appreciate you explaining the study parameters, I didn't realize they used the current method as the control. Funny though, I've wondered about the ethics of doing nothing for the control group, wondered how they were chosen.

Besides, putting it in writing makes you examine what you know and don't know, and that can't hurt. :)

Anyone who has these treatments must be very brave. I have been to a Dr once in the last 30 years :eek: Emergency room 2x. I seem to have worse problems if I let physicians prescribe drugs.

Not brave when the treatment's necessary - but thanks. Just hard to persevere. So sick tonight.

I'm sorry you're feeling crappy. But just imagine how that last cancer cell is feeling. It's ten times worse for that fucker.*evil laugh*

WHS^

Yeah, what glatt said.

Thanks ... I'll visualize those cancer cells going down one by one. The coming concept in the literature is that metastatic cells are present in the bone marrow before the primary is ever detected. The idea of being 'cancer free' after simple surgery is probably inaccurate. Unlike many cancers, breast cancer comes back, and back, and back ... the gift that keeps on giving. You don't ever go back to normal risk, even if you go years before a recurrence. Surgery gets the local disease but chemo is for the systemic. So - down with ye, distant cancer cells!

Or, indeed, FUCK CANCER!


Sent by thought transference

Or Flying Bitch Slaps To Cancer!

That's what I'll label my new desktop background! :)