Zoladex immediately after IVF
Hi ladies, I was wondering if anyone has had their Zoladex injection straight after an IVF cycle? My lymph nodes were clear so I don’t need chemo, but my oncologist wants to put me on Zoladex & Aromasin for 5 years, (with a break after 2y to have children - I’ll be 38/39). I am almost through an IVF round to freeze my eggs & was wondering if it’s healthy or safe for your ovaries to be hyper stimulated & then shutdown immediately afterwards. Or is it better to wait a few days/week for them to return to normal before starting Zoladex? None of my specialists seem to be communicating with each other, so I’m finding it difficult to know the urgency or safety around the issue. I don’t want to damage my fertility for the future, or increase my recurrence chances.. Would really appreciate any advice! *** A bit of background on my cancer: I’m 36 & I have Hormone positive (80%), HER2 negative breast cancer, ki67 16% (3 tumours in the right breast). I had a single nipple & skin sparing mastectomy with an expander (in preparation for radiotherapy), 10.5weeks ago. My breast surgeon got clear boarders and tested 4 lymphnodes which were also clear, so seemed to think I would need no further treatment, (which I found unusual for early bc). My surgeon then took 3 weeks to seek a multidisciplinary meeting with an oncologist & radiation oncologist, after which she said I’d need endocrine therapy to be safe, but no longer need radiotherapy. It took 8 weeks after surgery to get an oncologist appointment - and now I am starting IVF, then endocrine therapy next week. It’s been very difficult waiting around, without being given much information. (Perhaps I’ll post another question, asking if such slow, conservative aftercare is normal!)
So I have BRCA 2 mutation 🙄
I'm coming up to 12mths post chemo. 18mths post double mastectomy. 6mths post oophrectomy (ovaries out) after my IDC diagnosis after self detecting a small lump at age 46. Genetics is obviously something they put on a back burner during all this process but my sample was sent to the US after my recent genetics appointment. Results are in BRCA 2 identified.. I have mixed feelings tbh. First thought..oh my kids! Please don't let my family endure anymore elevated cancer risk. I have 3 children 2 daughters and a son i guess the chances are one of them does at least.. Then thank goodness i opted for a double mastectomy, and i chose to remove to remove my ovaries also. It looks like my risk of other cancers is also elevated now. Sometimes i really wish i could go back to the good old days, pre cancer! Oh how sweet was life! Today i have to talk with them about getting tested. 😕 but knowledge is power they say. Thanks for listening 💜
Chemo honeymoon is over
I'm writing on behalf of my amazing mum - she was diagnosed with invasive lobular breast cancer at 71. She has a mammogram every year but her specialist thinks her cancer has likely been there for at least three years - it couldn't be detected on mammogram or ultrasound and was only found after an MRI and because of a determined doctor who didn't like the feel of her breast. We're still in shock because it was 9cm and in 5 of 14 lymph nodes and we have no family history. She's had a mastectomy already and was petrified of chemo but here we are 1 week into 4 rounds of AC and 12 then of taxol. She was doing so well after chemo last Monday but all her medication for nausea stopped yesterday and now she is so ill with indigestion, nausea and tiredness. She's also been hallucinating at night after stopping the atavin 2 days ago. Her bladder also can't hold all the water she needs to drink. Just wondering if anyone has had similar experiences - does the nausea normally last for long? She has to start antibiotics in two days and is worried how she'll do that as they usually make her really crook too! Are there any tips for what to offer her to eat also?
One thing after another!
I have neuropathy in my hands and feet pretty bad so oncologist has put chemo on hold for the last 2 weeks. I have been having paclitaxel fortnightly. Next week she is changing the drug and it will be weekly. Pretty bummed about that as i was due to finish chemo next week and now i won't finish until end of November. Also, my mum has found a lump in her breast and is due for a biopsy in 2 weeks. Not sure we could cope if we both had cancer at the same time...
Pathology Results - Mixed Emotions
Had my post surgery follow up yesterday The news was mostly positive regarding the pathology of this new primary invasive cancer tumour: low grade, stage 1, clear margins, Hormone +, lymph nodes clear - hooray!!! The down side was the pathology also showed high grade DCIS throughout the whole specimen - which means more surgery. I'm only small breasted so the prospect of losing more breast tissue from that breast will no doubt mean a change in cup size! Surgeon said given the extent, chances of clear margins for re-excision of the DCIS is 50%. Must admit this statistic scares me as it means there's only a 50% chance I will be able to keep my breast this time. Hindsight can be so frustrating sometimes. Had I known this would happen 13mths ago when I was going through breast cancer treatment for Invasive cancer in my other breast (lumpectomy & Radiation) I would have opted for a double mastectomy rather than breast conserving surgery. The timing also just sucks - we've sold our house & are packing up to move from East Maitland to Port Macquarie in a couple of weeks. So I'm trying to squeeze this latest surgery in just before the move. The stress of our impending move alone has also already had a big impact on my husband & 2 teens. My husband is displaying symptoms of anxiety & or depression (he lives & works in Port Macquarie during the week & comes home on weekends) & my daughters chronic mental health issues have resurfaced (she self harms - is under the care of child & adolescent mental health service). My son & daughter are also not looking forward to changing schools & making new friends. Still, I guess all I can do is take one step at a time & just hope this new surgery is successful.
It's hard
Well I've been teary today. Day 3 after AC chemo round 4 and after neulasta and feel like crap. I'm tired but sleep eludes. I get nauseas frequently but starving also and feel like nothing in the house. My body aches everywhere but especially my neck and upper body...I have to wear bras again at night to assist. But of course the real blues is Cancer really sucks on Mothers day. I normally love cooking up a storm and just celebrating being a family....it seems to have sucked the joy out of it. My boys have tried their best...but what can you do. I miss my Mum who passed 8 years ago but equally glad she doesn't have to endure this with me...in person anyway. All I can think of...this time next year it will be different....it seems like a long way off. Hope you had a better Mother's Day. Kath x
Long journeys
I am finding that keeping up a "brave face" is wearing me down.. The continual blood tests, oncologists visit where I keep getting told my markers are increasing. Side effects from radiation and medication and waiting to have a scan for staging. I have had great advice from BCNA counsellor which gives me coping strategies but I still feel hopeless. It was my birthday today and dear friends and family made it such a happy day. I know to live each day the best I can but I want to yell at that horrible cancer to just leave me alone. Well that little self absorbed rant has made me feel a bit better. Just a note to all you lovely ladies that what didn't work for me has worked for many others. I'm feeling scared I might have to go back on IV chemo and that is daunting . I sometimes feel I'm looking at myself and thinking that can't be me. At the moment each day I do something for myself ( which usually includes family and friends) and just enjoy each moment. Hope everything is going well for all of you. Karel??????
Meeting my dad for the first time.
14 April. Well I have had the mastectomy op and the axillaries nodes removal op in November and December of last year. I have finished chemo which I have had all of this year and had a blood test yesterday so oncology can put me on Tamoxifen for the next two years starting next week. That’s enough about cancer. I have a new thing happening. This Sunday I am going to go and meet my biological father whom I have never met! I am 53 years old, and he is 76. Hubby and I are planning to travel on Saturday the 5 hours down the Qld coast and get those km’s out of the way and stay in our Lowood house for sale overnight. We really need to stay in the house as with my chemo happening the last three months, we are truly breaching our house insurance guidelines which say the house needs to be inhabited at least one day a month, oops! We will travel the other 2.5 hours into NSW to meet dad on Sunday and then do the long trip back to home on the Fraser coast on Sunday night. How come I am 53 years old and never met my father you may well ask? Well I was 25yrs old and estranged from my mother when she tracked me down and told me that while she was my mother, my father who had died of cancer when I was 13yrs old was my adopted father. She had never put my real fathers name on the birth certificate but she told me his name which at that time turned out to be the wrong middle name and even though I searched for him with phone calls trying every person with that same first and last name, I was never able to find him. The reason for this, I have now found out was that he was in the army but worked overseas for ASIO and his files were sealed. His mother and sister were told he was deceased and for 4 years they thought he was lost to them until he returned to Australia and knocked on his mother and sisters door very much alive and well, but that’s another story. He had tried to find me all my life but with adoption laws and his name not being originally on the birth certificate it was a hopeless search. My grandmother had also moved house from the address he had known my mother from and even if he had found her, she wasn’t about to reveal that my mother had married and started a respectable family of her own; (I have a younger half sister and half brother). Even dads brother contacted my grandmother before she moved house and was turned away so I have now been told. The years passed and I tried with the new era of internet to find my dad that way but Google searches never revealed anything about my dad. Then I was diagnosed with breast cancer in October, 2015 and things took a turn for the better in my search for dad. I was terribly worried breast cancer might be in our family lines but with no cancer on my mothers side at all, I asked mum what about my biological fathers genes? She finally remembered his correct first, middle and surname and I Google searched again. It came up with a hereditary family tree with dads name, his wife’s name (he was a married man when I was conceived and later divorced his wife) and two children, a boy and a girl. I told mum about it and she confirmed the wife’s name was the same name in the family tree online. Dad actually existed! Up until then I thought Mum had been telling me Porkie pies all these years as none of her family siblings or my grandmother, who must have half raised me to 4 years old before mum married, has ever said one word about mum being a single mother in my early life. I also tried from the names on the family tree I had found, Googling dads wife’s name, and the two children’s names. The only link I found was with one of the children, the daughter who linked to Face book. I thought it was probably a bit of a wild goose chase as she would have surely changed her maiden name to a married one as she was 53 years old like me on the family tree link but I thought what the hell, I would go onto Face book and private message her and see if her dad was my dad too. Imagine my surprise when she replied, yes Brenda, we have all been looking for you for years! If that wasn’t a surprise enough, she said she and her two children from her deceased partner lived with her mum, dads ex wife, just one street away from dad in NSW in the exact same town! She said dad had testicular cancer which had also turned into prostate cancer and he had beaten both of those years ago but he had just been diagnosed with bone cancer as well. My new found half sis and I chatted more on face book and linked our conversation with yet another half sister on face book as dad had remarried but she had lost her mother just one ago before to diabetes. I am not sure if dad had divorced her mother or not but apparently there was another half brother of mine by yet another mother whom dad hadn’t married. So I have two new half brothers and two half sisters. My goodness my family tree is growing fast. I have numerous nieces and nephews I never knew about either. My half sister gave me dad’s details and so began an odd sort of phone call, hello, I am Brenda, your daughter? Dad knew me straight off and he was absolutely delighted I had called him. He told me of some of his life and I told him some of mine but because he was quite tired from chemo I wrote him a letter of my life’s story which he has since told me he has nearly read the print off of and laughed and cried every time he has picked it up. We’ve kept in contact via phone throughout our cancer treatments and now my chemo is finished I have been bursting to get well enough to travel and meet him. This weekend is the meeting. He is on the last weekend of one of his monthly chemo doses and he doesn’t know how long they will keep happening. His next dose is on next Tuesday so he is as well as he is ever going to get at this stage. We’re going to meet him, wish us luck! Photo of my dad, from my new sister.
A reflective moment
Having a reflective moment as my daughter naps... So, today as I attempted to wash my hair and again watched in dismay as huge, huge clumps fell out and accumulated around the drain, I was feeling a little down. The itchiness around my eyebrows is suggesting that my eyebrows are about to follow suit. The cold cap is working, yes. After two rounds of FEC I should have no hair by now but I think I have lost around 50%. And I am so tired. So very tired. I needed something to remind me why I was doing this. After my surgery but before chemo started I had some family photos taken. I was looking through them today to remind me that this, THIS is why I am doing all of this. My family. My two beautiful girls. I couldn't help but notice the dark circles and tiredness of my eyes and of my husband's. And this was before chemo had even started. It takes its toll. I might Photoshop them out later. lol And my hair. I had so much hair! I guess that's why if a stranger saw me now they wouldn't know any different but it has thinned considerably. 1 small bald spot appearing. If it gets any bigger, it's time to shave. I hate that cold cap so much. I have such a huge skull (a family thing, my poor mum who gave birth to four of us in the days before drugs!) it doesn't really fit me properly and hurts. I have been researching my family history for the genetics test coming up. It has been so revealing. Much more breast cancer in my family than I ever knew about. Well, I'll be the first in my family to have the genetics test done. We'll soon find out if our family carries the gene. Family. I love them so much. I wish I had more energy for my girls right now.
