I don't like cancer

This is not a surprise, I just want to reiterate that I hate having cancer. I feel great and want this whole entire ordeal put behind me so my family and I can move on.

I posted earlier that I had a MUGA scan on Monday. I got the results at my oncologist visit today. The results and the visit were not good. The MUGA confirmed that my ejection fraction (EF) was 45%. The echos showed the same thing. What this means is that my heart is being affected by the Herceptin. It isn't pumping enough blood out of my left ventricle. As a result, I am now on a break from treatment for at least the next 6 weeks. I see a cardiologist on Friday. The damage caused is reversible so I'm hoping that with some time and treatment from the cardiologist, I'll be able to resume the Herceptin and finish this thing. Once I do resume, it won't be the same as before. I was going every 3 weeks for 90 minutes. I'll now go every week for 30 minutes. The idea is my heart won't have the huge rollercoaster effect each time I go in.

This wasn't the only bad news. Now, I will have to confirm some of this with my radiation oncologist, but my regular oncologist said that I can't do radiation at the same time as the Herceptin. Since my tumor was on the left side, this is where the radiation will be. It can clip the heart which is already weakened. So, if I do still need radiation, I'll have to wait until I'm done with the Herceptin, which may not be until September or October. I'll have radiation some time after that, then I will have to wait 6 months after that to do reconstruction.

My timeline has changed completely now. I was hoping to be done with all of this by the end of the year. Now it looks like it won't be until year from this summer. Ten months changed to eighteen in a very short visit. And all of this could still change more. I just want to be done.