more great bad news for Tricia fans!

The latest on Trish. I bolded the prayer requests. You're welcome. ;-)

I finally have some more great bad news to share! (No, I haven't been holding out on you. Yes, it has taken more than "3 or 4 days." Yes, Trish has been calling and driving Dr. T's office crazy. No, it didn't make a difference.)

Like her previous breast cancer, the breast cancer in Mom's lymph nodes is still HER2-positive! This is great news (Dr. T's words)! If you're confused, you can read my explanation of HER2 toward the end of this post. Basically, this news means we have many treatment options. It also better explains why this cancer is growing so slowly - Mom is already getting Herceptin (and has been for the last seven and a half years). Dr. T wants to keep Trish on Herceptin and add one more drug to her regimen. This drug is called Tykerb. Like Herceptin, Tykerb is a targeted therapy, not a chemo drug. It may have some side effects but they shouldn't be nearly as severe as chemo side effects. As with most drugs, there are some serious side effects that we should pray won't be a problem - go here if you want to read about them. Some of them are similar to Herceptin's side effects, and Trish has never had problems with any of those. Tykerb is a pill that Mom will take once a day (unlike Herceptin, which is an infusion she gets every three weeks). The Herceptin is already slowing the growth of this cancer. We're hoping and praying that the addition of Tykerb will stop it completely!

Trish and Tekia are currently en route to Orlando for Kia's national cheer competition and will be there the rest of the week. I spoke with Dr. T on the phone this morning and of course he's going to be gone next week! He's going to go ahead and do an insurance check on the Tykerb (pray there won't be any problems with insurance!), and Mom will schedule an appointment with his nurse practitioner for sometime next week. I'm sure we'll learn much more at that appointment, and hopefully Mom will then be able to start Tykerb!

There's actually a really good movie about HER2+ breast cancer and the making of Herceptin. It's not just for medical nerds, either - it really is a good movie! It's called Living Proof. Pretty sure it's available on netflix and I know it's available on amazon if you want to check it out. I'm so, so thankful for the story this movie shares. Here's a link to a short video about it . . .



And if you're a fan of Chase's prayers, you might enjoy reading two of the latest . . .

 

Here's to praying that Tykerb is God's "miracle stuff!"