No Answers, Only More Questions
I'm finally back from the doctor and I don't know that we necessarily have a solution, but I think we're on the path to at least figuring out what the problem is. I will be taking a little tamoxifen holiday for the next two weeks. If I start to feel better, then we'll know that it was the tamoxifen causing the fatigue. In the meantime, I left a large supply of my blood with the doctor's office for them to test for various problems, in the hopes of ruling out any actual medical issues.
Dr. Spira is going to run the numbers and try to determine how much actual benefit I get from the tamoxifen, meaning does it increase my chances of survival 2% or 15%? If it's just 2%, it might not be worth it to go back on it, if we determine that it is the cause of the problem. But if the number is higher, then we'll have to figure out a way to continue taking the drug and combat the fatigue. Looking back at my notes from my original oncologist, she put my benefit from this drug pretty high, in fact, most of the studies show that this is the most important part of treatment for my particular pathology. So in all likelihood, I'll be resuming the tamoxifen in a few weeks. There are a couple of other drugs we can try, but there are no studies on them in premenopausal women. In fact, I would have to become post menopausal before I can take them and since those systems are just now coming out of their chemo-induced break, I'm not overly eager to shut them down again. Dr. Spira assures me that taking a little break from this drug isn't going to cause my cancer to grow, but I am a little nervous about the possibility of giving it up all together.
My blood pressure was really low this morning, even for me, and they had a hard time drawing the gallon of blood they needed for all of the tests. My blood work is being sent out this time instead of being done in house, so I won't be able to get my tumor marker scores until next week sometime. Otherwise, everything else checked out ok; there were no lumps found and everything else is on track.
I visit the radiation oncologist in the morning, so I'll see if she has any additional thoughts on the fatigue and then I'll go back to Dr. Spira the Monday after Thanksgiving and hope we can figure this thing out.
Dr. Spira is going to run the numbers and try to determine how much actual benefit I get from the tamoxifen, meaning does it increase my chances of survival 2% or 15%? If it's just 2%, it might not be worth it to go back on it, if we determine that it is the cause of the problem. But if the number is higher, then we'll have to figure out a way to continue taking the drug and combat the fatigue. Looking back at my notes from my original oncologist, she put my benefit from this drug pretty high, in fact, most of the studies show that this is the most important part of treatment for my particular pathology. So in all likelihood, I'll be resuming the tamoxifen in a few weeks. There are a couple of other drugs we can try, but there are no studies on them in premenopausal women. In fact, I would have to become post menopausal before I can take them and since those systems are just now coming out of their chemo-induced break, I'm not overly eager to shut them down again. Dr. Spira assures me that taking a little break from this drug isn't going to cause my cancer to grow, but I am a little nervous about the possibility of giving it up all together.
My blood pressure was really low this morning, even for me, and they had a hard time drawing the gallon of blood they needed for all of the tests. My blood work is being sent out this time instead of being done in house, so I won't be able to get my tumor marker scores until next week sometime. Otherwise, everything else checked out ok; there were no lumps found and everything else is on track.
I visit the radiation oncologist in the morning, so I'll see if she has any additional thoughts on the fatigue and then I'll go back to Dr. Spira the Monday after Thanksgiving and hope we can figure this thing out.
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