Why Try to Make Decisions? Just Let Them Be Made For You!

What a crazy busy day!  First, we met with the Froedtert Research people to talk about the trials.  Then, I had a lab appointment where they draw blood to see how all my levels are.  Then, we had an appointment with my oncologist, Dr. Cheng, who I haven't seen in over a month now!

The meeting with the Research people went well.  At that point in the day, I still wasn't certain what I wanted to do, but at the end of the meeting, I did sign off on them checking some things to see if I even qualified to attempt to qualify!  Confusing, right?!  Well, apparently, I have to (1) have the right something or other present in my blood (HLA???) and (2) I have to have low HER2 in my tumor.  What's even more confusing about that is that "Triple Negative" means you are not ER+, or PR+, or HER+, and that's why they call it Triple Negative.  But, supposedly, just because you are not "+" does not mean you have none of these things present.  You can be low in ER, PR or HER, but not enough present to qualify as "+".  So, we pointed out to them that I am Triple Negative, but they said they would send the tumor away to find out if it had some amount of HER present in it.  At that point, if I meet these two initial qualifications, then I will be put through the actual qualification exams and whatnot to see if I qualify for the trial.  Sheesh!

Okay, so after that I went to labs, where they drew an extra couple of vials of blood to test for this HLA thing....and then finally made my up to see my Oncologist.  Dr. Cheng is such a nice guy and always so good at answering questions - and he does it in a way that makes you feel like you can ask him anything at all.  It is very encouraging.  Well, we told him about the trial and he was excited about it because he had been instrumental in bringing that trial to Froedtert (it originated MD Anderson) and he told us all kinds of stuff about it, etc. etc.  We told him how I have to have the low HER positivity and how misleading that is and then he said..."Well, you had your biopsy done outside of Froedtert, right?"  Well, yes, yes we did.  So then in that case, he can look it up in the computer system.  Yeah....I have 0 (zero) HER present in my tumor.  Sigh.  All that and I more than likely don't qualify anyway.  They are going to send it away anyway and get a second opinion on it, but it is looking like there is a really good chance I don't qualify for this trial.  

Well, at least that makes the decision super-easy!  Unless they decide to expand the trial to include HER negative people...which apparently they might do.  Ha!

Anyway, the appointment went well.  My numbers looked good and all that.  The best news to me was that Dr. Cheng said that although I did not get the Complete Pathological Response, I came very close (0.5 cm away), and I did get a complete response in the lymph nodes, which was the most important.  He went further saying that this has greatly reduced my risk of recurrence and that if he had to give it a number he would say I have a 10% chance at recurrence.  What?!?!?!  10%!!!!!!!  Ummm...like I said a few days ago, I am not sure what the recurrence rate it for TNBC patients, but I know it is higher than that.  10%!  That sounds like a pretty good number to me!  Especially when I compare it to the scary statistic that 1 in 8 women will have Breast Cancer - or 12.5%. Obviously, those two things are not really related to one another, but for some reason knowing that I have less chance of having a recurrence than I did of getting Breast Cancer to begin with is kinda reassuring.  

So, armed with that good news I came home, tired from a long morning of Froedtert bouncing (my new term for days when I am sent from one clinic to the next to the next), only to have to jump back in the car again to go to Kyrie's Spring Concert. I grabbed Declan on the way, and then returned home with three children while my mom had been watching Hugo. After a quick dinner and a hurried bedtime, Matt ran out the door with Kyrie again to take her to their repeat evening performance. I. Am. Beat. 

There's just enough time for a little bit of humorous TV to settle my brain and then I am off to La-La Land. Night y'all!