I had an appointment with my oncologist yesterday. She determined that we’ve got as much benefit from the chemotherapy drug (docetaxel) as we can compared with the havoc it’s wreaking on my body. She was particularly concerned with my level of exhaustion, significant weight loss due to nausea and vomiting (over 30 pounds since treatment began), neuropathy, and my poor old finger-and-toenails (they’ve finally started falling off…ugh). Although I was scheduled for 6 rounds of docetaxel, her ultimate goal was to get at least 4 rounds in me and we made it to 5. w00t!

This doesn’t mean treatment is done, though! I will still go in every three weeks for immunotherapy (pertuzumab and trastuzumab), but the side effects from those drugs aren’t generally as severe as those from the chemo. We’ll still have to monitor those side effects, naturally, to ensure that it really was the chemo causing the severity of my symptoms and not a combination of all the drugs. Additionally, in a couple of weeks I’ll start taking an estrogen blocker which will target the cancer cells that need estrogen to grow and spread (the dirty, thieving bastards).

I consider this good news (relatively speaking). My next set of scans will be in late July, which will tell us how the cancer has responded to treatment. I’m still very hopeful!