"THE PLAN"

After talking to the doctor and coming up with a plan (after a zillion questions) here it is:

Going to take Xeloda ( a chemo drug) orally twice a day for 2 weeks and then take a week off. I will do this for 2 or 3 cycles and then test again and see what is going on with the cancer. Hopefully it will have shrunk.

The clinical trial that I am eligible for includes on the of the chemo drugs that I was just taking and was ineffective so it is pointless to do that trial. I am going to try this one drug and see how it works and then we'll either continue with it or else get a new one.

Breast cancer is a bit different than other cancers in that it will respond to different types of chemo so if this one doesn't work it doesn't mean that a different one won't work. So it is just a process of finding the right one.

I am just waiting for the insurance company to approve me taking this drug. The doctor writes a prescrpition for it, obviously wants me to take it, insurance won't cover it till pharmacy faxes doctor's office for permission, they doctor's office calls the insurance company and says that yes, he wants me to take it, and then they will call the pharmacy to tell them it is ok.

I think I freaked the girl out a bit last night, she said "do you need this right away?" and I said, well, the cancer is growing as we speak so yeah, I do. Still waiting to hear back from the insurance company. Errrrrrrrrr!

Good news is that the side effects of this chemo are pretty minimal.