October 26, 2010 - First visit to the oncologist-more GREAT news!!

A very tiring but good day today.  Saw Dr. Guerra today for a quick followup, nothing new there.  Still a problem with water retention, but nothing time wont solve.

Saw Dr. Barth after that for our first time - he is one of the foremost oncologists on the west coast (head of oncology at hoag and former chief of staff there, too).  Before his very long and thorough explanation of his analysis of anita's cancer he started out with this:

Anita is in a very rare minority of breast cancer patients where all of the planets have lined up perfectly:
- Her cancer was of a VERY slow growing nature (DCIS grade 1)
- The characteristics of the actual cancer cells point to a non-aggressive form (low grade)
- The cancer cells were of a type that are extremely estrogen/progesterone receptive. (with a 3+ rating).   This is good because she can opt to use "estrogen inhibitors" like Tamoxifen to decrease the likelihood of future cancers.  There is an 80% chance that Tamoxifen like drugs will have the desired effect when you have a 3+ rating.  In a nutshell, these drugs work by blocking estrogen from binding to cancer cells.  When blocked, the cancer cells are more susceptible to eventually dying off (like most cells do) rather than multiplying uncontrolled.  Statistically speaking, Anita has a 1% chance PER YEAR of developing breast cancer again over her lifespan.  So in 5 years, she has a 5% chance, etc.  Tamoxifen reduces that chance to 0.5% per year.

(There is another, newer class of drugs called Aromatase Inhibitors (AI's) that actually reduce the amount of estrogen in the bloodstream (not block it).  Once Anita is more on the mend, Dr. Barth is going to do a massive workup on her to determine the best course of action.)

He said that Anita's favorable combination can only be found in approximately 1% of all breast cancer patients!!

As for me, I was able to escape last night to go to the gym. (Rusty Ito my nephew this is for you!!).  The last time I saw my nephew Rusty, we kind of talked about doing a half marathon next year (his mom, my sis Dianne is a runner too).  I decided to see if I could run a 10K - 6.2 miles on a lark, so off on the treadmill I went.  Good news-I did it.  Bad news - I did it.  Moving very slowly today, I can see that more training is in order!!!