The Road To Recovery

Hi Everyone,

It has been a long time since I have updated our blog, and I apologize for keeping many of you hanging. Since my last entry Marce has recovered from her chemotherapy, and has returned to her normal glowing self. Her hair has returned and as of a few weeks ago she is stopping to wear a hat or wig. It is returning a bit curly or wavy, but with more grey than she would prefer. But I and the girls all think it looks great and, like new flowers in the spring, is a sign of what we hope is a long and healthy life.

So what have we been doing? About six weeks after completing her treatment, we chartered a 50 foot Benetau sailboat with our good friends the Spears and spent a week sailing the San Juans. We had a wonderful time, hitting locations of Friday Harbor, Roche Harbor, Stuart Island, Sucia Island, and Rosario Resort.

When we returned to Seattle, Marce finally had the courage and strength to start Tamoxifen, which is a hormone blocking medication designed to snuff out any potentially remaining cancer cells. Since her cancer feeds off estrogen, the idea is to cut off the food supply for any rogue cells which may have escaped into her body undetected. There is something like a 20-30% chance this has occurred and, if so, the best time to kill it is when it is only a few cells strong. It is much easier to kill a tumor comprised of only a few cells than one comprised of millions. Unfortunately after a week of being on this treatment, Marce experienced major complications, with symptoms being what I would call "extreme menopause" combined with strong headaches. So she stopped the treatment, and this two weeks ago we met with Dr. Kaplan, her oncologist, to discuss alternatives. He has put her on a sister drug called Fareston, which has similar benefits to Tamoxifen. But her reaction could have been to the Tamoxifen itself, rather than hormonal changes. So she is on one tablet 2X per week and is ramping up to daily, with a slow progression to make sure she doesn't have the same side effects. More to come on the results...

Marc