A Bad Day

Well, I suppose many of you may know this already by reading Tracy's blog, but yesterday did not go as planned. Her MUGA test showed that her heart was functioning at a significantly lower level than it had before she started chemo. It appears that the herceptin she is taking has caused it.

To back up just a bit, Tracy's cancer tested high for the HER2 protein. Only one in five test high for it and Tracy falls into that category. HER2 can cause cancer to spread faster and make it more likely to reoccur. Herceptin has proven in studies to lessen the likelihood of reoccurrance and also make chemotherapy more effective in treating existing cancers for women with HER2. However, in about 30% of people that take herceptin, it can affect the heart and Tracy falls into that category as well.

So yesterday she finished up with her chemo except for the herceptin. The big thing we're worried about is her being able to get back on it and in all likelihood, she should be able to get back on it once her heart shows some recovery. From what I've heard and read, the heart could recover quickly on its own and it may or may not require some heart medication before getting back on it.

So we're worried about her heart and we're worried about cancer. Not a fun place to be in right now. We had been getting some pretty good momentum of progress, and this kinda pulled us out of that mindset and returns some feelings of uncertainty. But we will meet with our oncologist when he gets back in town and we'll see what he says. Everybody is different, so since Tracy's cancer appears to not have spread, they may be a bit more conservative with her. Generally speaking though, from what I've read, doctors would rather take a chance and go after the cancer rather than take too many precautions with the heart. But as Dr. Langdon said, we all want to live long healthy lives and we certainly need healthy hearts to do that. In the meantime, we will wait and try to do as much as we can to live "heart healthy" lives. And this only adds fuel to the fire for the need for more fundraising for cancer research. We're going to do the Relay For Life fundraiser this year. I'm hoping that everyone can chip in and help us raise money for more progress to be made.