Meeting the Medical Oncologist
I met with the Medical Oncologist today. He gave me the option of doing chemo before or after surgery. There's about a 5-10% chance that chemo before surgery will help reduce the amount of cancer that's already in the lymph nodes, thus reducing the amount of axillary node dissection. This is important to help reduce my risk of developing lymphedema in my arm.
I’ll be having the standard "cocktail" of Adriamycin/Cotoxan & Taxol.
A/C x 4 (every two weeks)
T x 12 (every week)
He also gave me the option of joining a clinical trial through Johns Hopkins using immunotherapy and possible radiation before the standard chemo I will already be getting. Joining the trial is contingent on my Oncotype, so we await the lab results to decide how to proceed with treatments.
In the meantime, he had me schedule an echocardiogram (heart ultrasound) and a port insertion, which are both needed anyway before starting chemo, as well as an initial consult with the Radiology Oncologist who is working on the clinical trial.
