starting

My wife has metastatic breast cancer.  I am starting this blog to document our journey, outlet for my thoughts and fears as well as a venue to put some photos.  Right now it all seems so unfair that her cancer has recurred and spread throughout her body, I can’t really hope anything will work.  I am numb.  Logically, I know that the chemo regiment and biological agents created to attack HER2 + should help.  I know people live for years with metastatic cancer, but now less then a week after the recurrence and diagnosis, I find it hard to hope.  Laura won the lottery but the wrong one.

She has been in touch with a woman who has lived with metastatic breast cancer for 10 years including 4 years of 11 different brain tumors.  I should believe our good medical oncologist when he thinks he can treat the cancer and tamp it down to both prolong her life as well as quality of life.  It’s just hard to believe in anything good.  That being said, the sun was warm yesterday; the garden is thriving and American white pelicans landed in Alderbrook lagoon on Saturday.  Hope will come.  We are being present and enjoying time with each other and our kids.

according to WebMD (The internet is where I get all my information!  Just kidding):

Today, say the MD Anderson researchers, as many as 40% of women with recurrent or metastatic breast cancer survive at least five years. "More and more, both doctors and patients approach it as a chronic condition," says Eric Winer, MD, director of the Breast Program at Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. "We can't cure it, but we can manage it for many years."