It's Time For Some Good News

I feel like I've been in a bit of a downward spiral lately. Mom's death, Maggie's illness, COVID variants...lots of anxiety and stress. It's time for some good news in my life.

I just returned home from the oncologist and I have officially graduated from my cancer treatment! In 2015 I was diagnosed with estrogen-receptive breast cancer, stage two. I had surgery, radiation and hormonal treatment. The hormonal treatment was to get my body to stop producing estrogen (since that's what my tumor liked to eat). I would take a pill each night and get a shot of Lupron every 3 months.

A few months ago I enrolled in a study where my original tissue would be tested to see if continued treatment was the right call. Normally, the type of treatment I was on, ovarian suppression therapy, was only advised for five years. And I was on year six.

The results came back that I had a 3.6% chance of recurrence. To my oncologist, that was basically zero. "But they can't say zero percent in science." So I'm done! We'll continue to monitor my estrogen levels to make sure they don't rise up. If they do, we can go back on the treatment. But she felt pretty confident that I would just sail into natural menopause.

Of course I'm cautiously optimistic. And I'll continue to be healthy and COVID-safe. But it's about dang time we got some good news up in here!