Herceptin

"Herceptin is a targeted therapy approved for the treatment of people with certain HER2+ cancers. HER2+ cancer cells have more HER2 receptors (a particular protein found on the surface of cells) than normal cells. HER2+ cancer is considered aggressive because it grows and spreads quickly."

"Herceptin is approved for the treatment of early-stage breast cancer that is Human Epidermal growth factorReceptor 2-positive (HER2+) and has spread into the lymph nodes, or is HER2+ and has not spread into the lymph nodes. If it has not spread into the lymph nodes, the cancer needs to be estrogen receptor/progesterone receptor (ER/PR)-negative or have 1 high risk feature.* Herceptin can be used in several different ways:

• As part of a treatment course including the chemotherapy drugs Adriamycin® (doxorubicin), Cytoxan®(cyclophosphamide), and either Taxol® (paclitaxel) or Taxotere® (docetaxel). This treatment course is known as "AC→TH"
• With the chemotherapy drugs Taxotere and Paraplatin® (carboplatin). This treatment course is known as "TCH"
• Alone after treatment with multiple other therapies, including an anthracycline (Adriamycin)-based therapy (a type of chemotherapy)"

I had the TCH treatment followed by tri-weekly infusions of Herceptin for "maintenance." It came to a total of 18 treatments. 6 with chemo and 12 following chemo by itself. Getting just the Herceptin was quite easy. It took time, since I have to wait, like all doctor offices(!), then I have to get my port accessed, then some saline, and lastly, the Herceptin. It's so much quicker than when I had to get chemo and I've been doing it for so long that it's really just a breeze. The only side effect I had was being pretty tired the day off and the day after. But again, after chemo that was nothing!

I had my last Herceptin infusion on Friday, October 4th. I have a scan in November and if everything is clear then I get to have the port taken out!

Beach Time

We say every summer we need to do a family trip to the beach.  My sister-in-law, Laura, and her family live less than 2 hours from Amelia Island. We finally got around to doing it this summer. We stopped by their house for a night then headed to the beach. Jason's parents and his brother's family came too. We had a blast! The beach was perfect and everyone had a lot of fun. I'm so glad we planned this.

The last morning, Liam woke up early and since I didn't want him waking the girls I threw him in the baby backpack carrier and took him walking. When we started it was still dark out but as we walked onto the beach the sun was rising. It was such a peaceful and pretty moment.

Summer Days

Summer days can get kind of long so one day I decided to do a science experiment and have the girls make a volcano. Kate and Abby had a blast making the mixture and shaping it then adding the dinosaurs. You must have dinosaurs with an erupting volcano! We did most of it during Liam's nap time but he was ready to be part of the group as soon as he woke! We also spent a day at the Children's Museum; used food dye to color water, freeze ice cubes, then melt them together to create new colors; played in the backyard; Dr check ups, made some ice cream; and had some meltdowns... It was a fun mix up to the summer.

(I'm throwing a random picture in of when they asked Jason to volunteer during primary at church :))

Peachtree Baby

I decided a couple weeks before the 4th that I was up for running the Peachtree Race with my Dad. I was obviously not in very good shape. I wanted to do it because it's tradition and I didn't want cancer to take away another thing. We did really well and ran the entire 6.2 miles! It was a slow run, but we did it non the less. The girls and Liam stayed back with Jason and my Mom. Unfortunately, the St. Ives parade was canceled due to rain. We did go to lunch after and then that night we hung out as a family. We went to Columbus that weekend and the cousins had fun doing small fireworks and sparklers.