Today is the 7 year anniversary of Laura getting the diagnosis of having Breast Cancer. I am going write a too long log of her treatments as I look at the book I have had at every doctor appointment she has had. I remember so vividly driving to Longview WA and seeing a doctor that neither of us liked and him telling Laura that she had breast cancer. It was a few days before Tim started ninth grade and Ani started her Junior year of High School. Here is a brief summary of Laura's treatments:
Sept. 2012 started chemo of Taxater and Herceptin and one other chemo drug- one infusion in a port every three weeks for six total infusions.
Jan 2013- surgery- double mastectomy, remove the port, remove the chemoed cancer and many if not most lymph nodes under her right arm pit. She continues having infusions of Herceptin every three weeks.
March 2013- 35 days of radiation in Longview WA. She rode a radiation bus many days and I and friends drove her some too. Then she was declared cancer free and had a higher than 90% chance of being cancer free for 10 years given how young and in good physical shape she was. In April of 2012, Laura and I did a long weekend in San Diego as a holiday and celebration which was a lovely weekend. I still want to go back to San Diego and play there again.
Then in Sept of 2013 she started a 9 month program at Clatsop Community College to become a Medical Assistant.
May 2014, she has a bump on her neck, gets it biopsied and she finds out her cancer has metastasized into her lymph system, lungs and liver. She starts a new round of chemo every three weeks that is projeta, herceptin and taxall or taxater. That controls that cancer in her body.
May 2015 Laura is starting to have troubles doing flip turns in the pool. She gets disoriented and asks her doctor for a brain MRI. All during this time, Laura is swimming 1-2 miles 5 days a week at our pool and continues to run 3-5 miles on her non swim days... The brain MRI shows hundreds of small tumors throughout her brain. She gets 5 days of whole brain radiation in June of 2015. In retrospect, the whole brain radiation did save her life but was very toxic too. Her radiation Oncologist in Portland who did the whole brain radiation and subsequent gamma knife surgery said in May of 2019 that Laura is one of three people nation wide who is still alive from whole brain radiation from June of 2015 with the kind of cancer she has. He said, in retrospect, that 50% of the people who had whole brain radiation in June of 2015 died within 7 months. Laura is one tough chick. Also her chemo changed at this point to a pill that was taken daily and caused her fissures on her finger tips and feet. ick.
Then in January and June of 2016, she had gamma knife sessions where they point 256 gamma radiation beams through her head and blast one small spot with gamma radiation to zap brain tumors.
June 2016 she started TDM-1 chemo every three weeks which she was on until she stopped chemo in July 2019. It had the least side effects of any of the chemos she has been on. Then things fell apart this May.
Laura sat up today from 9-1130 and ate some pancakes and yogurt and drank some water. She cannot really talk too well or at all. She has said oh my god and thank you to Ani once and some babbling stuff too. We know you all love her so. Thank you for caring and being close.
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