Chemo Round Two Starts with a Miracle

I had something miraculous happen yesterday. Before my second round of chemo, I had a meeting with my medical oncologist, Dr. Douglas Flora. Much to my delight, he informed me that I would, indeed, be the 1st woman at the OHC practice to receive the brand-new drug called Perjeta recently FDA approved in neoadjuvant advanced breast cancer treatment for patients like myself with HER2 positive receptors. My doctor is very hopeful that this will help me live a longer life and knock down the recurrence rates which tend to run high with my flavor of cancer. He further informed me that my insurance company will not cover Perjeta because it is too new and still about three months away from being the go-to treatment given to all cases like mine. The medicine will cost in the ballpark of $90,000. Now here comes the miraculous part. My doctor takes breast cancer very personally. He lost his mother at a young age to breast cancer. Dr. Flora said to me, "You must live. You are a special case. You need to be there for your children." He vowed that if they couldn't get the insurance company to overturn their decision, he would pick up the tab for the new drug. In fact, he had already signed the paper accepting financial responsibility. I was nearly speechless as tears ran down my face. It's not every day someone gives you the gift of life and asks for nothing in return. The genuine compassion and care this man takes with me, with his other patients, is beyond heroic. I am humbled and so extremely thankful for being given the chance to fight this cancer with all the weapons that are available today. Not three months from now when it will do me no good because there is a synergistic relationship that couples with the three other chemo drugs I am on right now. All I can simply say is, "Thank you, Dr. Flora! You're my hero!"

So I went into my second round of chemo bolstered by the miracle that had just been presented to me. Allow me to backtrack for just a moment...I started the day off with one of the worst migraine headaches I've ever had. Let me tell you this is a very uncool way to go into chemo day. But the news from my doctor as well as a little help he gave me in the form of some migraine medicine through my port, made me feel better walking out of chemo than when I got there. I slept through all 4 1/2 hours of my chemo while sucking in six bags of medicine. I got up, drove myself home, and couldn't wait to share today's gift with my husband.

Oh, I have some additional good news. I got my initial genetic testing report back. My BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes tested negative for mutations. These two gene mutations are the most common ones associated with breast and ovarian cancer. This is fantastic news for my children and all women in my family. Should those genes test positive for mutation, that person's offspring have a 50/50 chance of getting breast cancer themselves. I'm breathing a sigh of relief for my two girls. There are more genetic tests being run on some of the less common gene mutations like the P10 gene that is linked to breast cancer in women and thyroid cancer in men. My father had thyroid cancer a handful of years ago, so this gene is of particular interest. However, we will not know the results of further testing for three months. For now, I count myself blessed.