I've gotten all my questions answered about my chemo. Turns out, the confusion was entirely my own. Although, I was left out of the loop somewhat by the Oncology team! David and I met with Dr Truica a couple of months ago to discuss the chemo schedule. The Nurse Practitioner was even nice enough to print out a calendar of treatments for me. So, what for us was a firm schedule, was not so much for the O. team. Since my case is a bit unusual (lucky me!), I've been discussed a bunch. They even presented my case to the Tumor Board at Sinai. The Tumor Board meets about once a month and consists of Oncologists, Radiation Oncologists, Oncologic Surgeons and Nurse Practitioners. They discuss challenging cases and form a concensus opinion about how to treat these cases. I think it's a great concept. Very non-egotistical of some potentially very egotistical people! After the Tumor Board met, I remember being told that I'd need a biopsy but I don't remember the chemo schedule change. But, overall, the change to the chemo was pretty minor. So it was no big deal. We did find out, by giving me the 'dense' dose of Taxol, that I definitely need the 'regular' dose, given every week instead of every other week. My reaction to the Taxol was NOT GOOD!! Lots of bone pain - ouch! And plenty of tummy trouble!
BTW - My case is 'unusual' because, although the tumor in the lymph node under my arm consisted of breast cancer cells, there was no primary tumor identified in either breast. I had a very fancy breast MRI which showed 'something' at 12 o'clock in the left breast. Could have been a former tumor, now dried up and inactive, that 'seeded' the tumor in the lymph node. It was this 'thing' that the Tumor Board recommemded a biopsy of.
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