When I was first diagnosed, they tested my cancer for a bunch of different qualities (hormone receptiveness, genetic abnormalities, etc) so they could best know how to attack it. I tested “inconclusive” for something called “HER-2.” I now know that they should have then performed a further test to resolve that “inconclusion.” But they didn’t, so we rolled merrily along. Sometime in the past month, for whatever lucky or unlucky reasons, someone in some lab in California selected my pathology results for further testing, and I lo and behold, I came back HER-2 POSITVE. Oopsie.
This both good and bad news:
Good: they can now use a really great new-ish drug called Herceptin to treat me, which greatly reduces chances of cancer recurrence in my future. Bad: it actually means that my cancer is more aggressive than they originally thought (this is less scary than it might’ve been because I am responding so well to treatment anyway). BUT, the real kicker, the truly, truly awful news is: now I have to have EIGHT more rounds of Taxol, in combination with this new drug Herceptin, for EIGHT more weeks, ONCE a week. AND, my surgery has been pushed back eight more weeks, obviously. AND my radiation schedule is all screwed up. Basically, my entire carefully-planned life for the next four months is completely fubar (did you know that word is actually in the dictionary? And did you know that “fubsy” is a word, too? It means “short and squat” – isn’t that great? Fubsy. Right after Fubar.) Oh, and did I mention that I have to have an infusion of Herceptin every three weeks for the next YEAR???
So, this was the news I was greeted with when I showed up at Duke on the 23rd, all aglow with that last-chemo glow. (Cambra: Good morning Dr. Blackwell!! Gee, isn’t it pretty and snowy outside? I love Christmas!! I’m done with chemo, YAHOOOOOOOO! Dr. Blackwell: You get no Christmas.)
Apparently, Herceptin works best in combination with Taxol, so while I could have just started the Herceptin following surgery, now that it’s so late in the game anyway, Dr. Blackwell thought it was important enough that we delay surgery and draw out the last Taxol treatments over several weeks, so that I can get the Herceptin with the Taxol. So, I’ll be getting a lower dose of Taxol every week, along with my new friend, Herceptin.
Fortunately, Herceptin doesn’t have many noticeable side effects (except cancer death and destruction, which I’m sure has absolutely NO effect on the billions of other cells in my body), and with the Taxol dose so much lower, hopefully my heartburn will be better and the aches will be less. This has already proved true, since I had my first of these treatments last Monday. However, the longer Taxol-time does increase my risk of developing neuropathy, and I have already noticed some tingling in my feet when I get up in the morning. But it’s not actually painful and it’s not bad, yet.
Needless to say, my Christmas was spent in a funk of glowering and sulking and thinking frantically and whining and planning and purchasing a boat-load of plane tickets to Raleigh.
So, for the next seven weeks (one already down!), I will fly to some Midwestern city on Monday, load-in on Tuesday, fly to Raleigh on Wednesday, fly back to the Midwestern city on Thursday, do a five-show weekend, and fly to some other Midwestern city again on Monday. That’s three flights a week. Although, of course, since virtually no airline flies directly to Raleigh, I’ll be doing quite a bit of connecting, so it will really be closer to five flights a week. That’s thirty-five flights in the next seven weeks. Now, granted, this is my own choice. I could stop working, sit in Raleigh, and have chemo. But as much as I love my mother and my Raleigh friends, I’m pretty sure I would lose my mind doing this. So instead, I fly.
I’m thinking of writing an article about myself and getting it published in the Times in an attempt to get some corporate sponsorship. “Stricken Stage Manager Goes Broke Trying to Keep Her Job.” “In Spite of Cancer, The Show Goes On.” Something obnoxious and catchy like that. Maybe I could be the postergirl for US Airways. Or perhaps they’ll put me on the side of phone booths, like that bald kid Emma: “Cambra has cancer, too, dammit.”
So. It’s official: I AM OVER THIS! Done. Finito. Patience all used up. I was doing just fine with the chemo and the tumors and the baldness and the heartburn and the loss of my estrogen, but now MY PLANS ARE MESSED UP AND I AM PISSED.
I’m writing this from 35,000 feet, somewhere west of the Mississippi, en route to Tempe, Arizona – the first stop on our second leg of the tour. It’s about 9pm Eastern time. Tomorrow at 8am (Mountain time) I’ll be at the theatre, where we’ll load-in, focus lights for four hours, set up backstage, do the show, and then I’ll go straight to the airport afterwards and get on a plane at 11:50pm (Mountain time) and fly back to the East coast, where I’ll sit in a hospital for six hours (Eastern time) and have the oncological equivalent of Raid pumped through my veins.
Happy New Year!
Crankily yours,
Cambra
P.S. – I didn’t take any pictures this last go-round, but if I had, this is what I would have looked like.