No More Chemo but new bullet to dodge

I'm done with chemo. Chemo kills fast growing cells and since my cancer wasn't growing anymore the chemo did all it could do which was a lot. We did get a good response from the chemo.

Now the new bullet. Seems never ending really but here it is and I'll do my best to explain this. We are back to the HER2neu. For review that is a type of breast cancer. For explanation think of cancer as an mm candy think of HER2neu as a peanut mm candy. Chemo kills the chocolate but leaves behind the peanut which can grow into cancer again. Not but a few years ago there was no way to treat HER2neu but now they have a drug. Its a protein so we are not talking about chemo. It coats the peanut and it dies because it can't get anything it needs to survive. I know I have been told I'm negative for HER2neu but its been a boarder line negative and here's why. When they test for HER2neu the first test they run is a stain test. Cheap and easy. Stain the tissue which turns the proteins a color and see what you get. What I got was that they couldn't tell for sure if it was negative but not enough to be certain it was positive. So the tissue goes off to have the FISH test. That tests stuff more internally in the cancer cells. That came back negative but the oncotype dx tested for HER2neu and it wasn't just negative or positive but they put a score on it. It came back negative but closer to the positive side. This has bothered me. Dr. Barth has sent it for a 3rd type of test that is conclusive. He will have the results back in about another week. The good the bad and the ugly....at least they can treat it with hercipin (good). But, it's administered every three weeks by IV (bad) and I'll have it for a year! (the ugly).

Crap.

Hoping to dodge this bullet.

In the meantime I will be starting radiation. It will be done at Hoag. Dr. Barth wants me to use one of two doctors and I'll be calling tomorrow to set up a consultation appointment.

Off to read more about radiation and hercipin.