Last Friday I went up to Huntsman for another echocardiogram, and it showed that my ejection fractions was at about 54-55% (it’s  not super exact).  This was good enough for me to get back on Herceptin, although my doctor was hesitant for me to take more Herceptin.  She feels that my heart has sustained SOME permanent damage from all the chemo and from Herceptin, and that I should probably just be done with it.

The full course is usually for a year, and I am a few months shy of that, but many doctors feel that a full year is not needed to receive the full benefits from Herceptin.  We made an agreement that I would receive Herceptin 4 more times.  The first time was last Friday, and I will have three more treatments three weeks apart.  After that I will be done.  I will also get another echo on my heart before the third treatment to make sure my heart is holding up okay for the last two treatments.

I don’t like the idea of doing something that is causing some damage to my heart, but I know it is a very effective drug for me, and cancer is the biggest danger for me at this point, so I will continue with Herceptin a little while longer.  This has been something we (Branden, Dr. “B”, my cardiologist, and I) have given a lot of thought to.

It’s scary to me, because every time I take Herceptin I actually feel pains in my heart over the next week or two, and that kind of freaks me out.  I feel that my heart is not as strong as it was before I started all of this, and I just want to be the same as I was before all of this.  But I am just trying to finish this battle with cancer once and for all.  I don’t want it to come back, and so I am doing everything I can.

Monday I will have my PET scan.  I will get the results 2 or 3 days later.