Anna's Book of Days

Having breast cancer - or any serious health problem - can have enormous costs, everything from the existential right on down the line to the physical, emotional, relationships, time, lifestyle, and financial costs. I've written about some of the others, but I haven't written about the financial costs because I am one of the fortunate few who have both excellent health insurance and the means to cover the out-of-pocket expenses. Even so, when we were working on our tax preparation recently, I was shocked to find that we had about $5,000 of unreimbursed medical expenses in 2014, and I expect that we'll have at least that amount, if not more, in 2015. That, despite having every cent of the hundreds of thousands of dollars of chemotherapy drugs I've received paid for by Roche, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of other costs covered by my insurance. My hospital bill for my surgery was $137,000, and that was only the hospital - it doesn't even cover the services of t...

I had my second PET scan on Monday (actually my third if you count one that I had in 2006). I just got the results - negative! So now I am officially cancer-free.

I completed Treatment 9 yesterday, and with that, I am officially halfway through treatment (neoadjuvant and adjuvant combined) - nine down, nine to go. I find recognizing these milestones very comforting, even if they're somewhat arbitrary. Last cycle I experienced some skin irritation on my face, particularly my eyelids and forehead, even though I've been moisturizing like mad. It doesn't look too awful - at least when I'm made up - but at times it's been very uncomfortable. Dr. Hurvitz said that it's not unexpected given that Herceptin and Perjeta are blocking HER2. HER2 stands for Human Epidermal (as in epidermis, or skin) Growth Factor Receptor 2, and it's a protein involved in normal skin cell growth. Maddie told me to try taking Benadryl at night and Claritin in the morning to see if antihistamines can calm it down. She's also referring me to a dermatologist, who might have some other ideas. I hate to complain - since of course it's wa...