So yesterday was my last day of chemo ... according to the original plan of attack.
My last two checkups with Dr W (my oncologist) involved discussion on whether or not to extend my chemo run.
Given how well my cancer (the breast tumours and liver lesions) have responded to chemotherapy, he told me that he's comfortable stopping that line of treatment as scheduled.
He has been clear from the jump that the liver may never be cancer (lesion) free. His ultimate goal is to shrink things down to a stable state, take me off the chemo, and then let the hormone blockers maintain (and possibly shrink further) the liver.
HOWEVER, that really doesn't sit too well with me.
Even though the breast ultrasound from January showed "no obvious sonographic mass" (= no evidence of a tumour), the CT scan did still show some lesions on my liver.
So why would I stop chemo if there's still evidence of cancer in my body?
Obviously no one WANTS to do chemo. But if there is still cancer inside of me, and I'm still tolerating treatment well, and it's still not affecting any of my other organs, and it still seems to be working, then why would I stop?
I've given this a lot of thought over the last month (or more). Like A LOT of thought!!
And while there are a great number of holistic measures that I truly believe will work to fight (and kill) cancer, many of them could interfere with chemo. And as much as I would like to incorporate more of these into my daily regimen right now, I'm not quite ready yet to kick chemo to the curb.
Soooo, I told Dr W at my last appointment that I wanted to keep going, and we agreed on two more cycles; which is six more weeks, and four more rounds of chemo.
From there, if the liver still has lesions, I am comfortable stopping chemo, and integrating a SUPER-DUPER hardcore holistic approach alongside the hormone blockers - which will be administered by IV, every three weeks, for life.
And by SUPER-DUPER hardcore, I mean a carefully researched (and integrative oncologist approved) regimen of supplements, vitamins, and herbs (in addition to my *mostly* plant-based diet) that will kick the remaining cancer's ass, and keep it the hell out for good!
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