Sheila's Cancer Treatment Update

A few months ago, I wrote about Sheila and I discussing whether or not to continue Sheila's cancer treatment.  The treatment was making her daily life miserable.  Worse yet, this treatment was to continue for a total of ten years.  Ten years of absolute misery didn't seem like a very wise option to choose for someone who is supposed to be recovering from her second bout of breast cancer with lymph involvement.  After some serious complications, ER visits, and a significant deterioration in her quality of life, we both decided it was time to stop treatment. 

As one would expect, Sheila's oncologist wasn't too thrilled with our choice.  

The oncologist recommended some further testing to determine risk factors with and without her continued treatment and we felt this would be a good idea.  In the back of our minds, even though Sheila's quality of life absolutely sucked during treatment, we always knew we would second guess this decision to abort her treatment if cancer popped up again in five, ten or even fifteen years.  This testing sounded like a good idea.

After securing funding for this expensive test (I think the funding landed on grant money), they dug back into Sheila's most recent cancer specimen and ran this testing.  Today, we returned to the hospital to meet with Sheila's oncologist to discuss the results and then decide where to go from here.  

I suppose the news is part good news...  the test proved that Sheila would not benefit from further treatment which means that we can rest easy in our decision to abort treatment about nine years early.  So, no harm, no foul, in making that decision.  The bad news is that we learned that Sheila would not benefit from any further treatment...  which can tend to be a bit of a scary thought if you really think about it.  It is a bit frightening to hear a doctor say that all the known treatment in the world would not benefit you in any way especially when talking about a life-threatening disease like cancer.  

I had asked the oncologist what factors were considered in this test that determined Sheila would not benefit from further treatment.  It came down to analyzing Sheila's genetics/DNA and the types of cancers she has had these last two times.  In this particular case, no available treatment would benefit Sheila more than a negligible margin.  So the oncologist admitted that this is the perfect situation where declining further treatment would make sense.  

I should point out that the radiation therapy was not a waste, however.  The aggressive radiation therapy was needed this time around, for sure.  The oncologist did mention, however, that Sheila's chemo-therapy after her first bout with breast cancer was probably unnecessary considering the results of this new testing.  That was something that was not known at the time eleven or twelve years ago.  

In the end, the test results show that Sheila's chance of recurrence is only negligibly different whether she continues treatment or stops treatment.  Considering the ER visits and the daily misery Sheila was experiencing with this grueling treatment...  considering she still had another nine years to go in this treatment plan... overall, getting news that the treatment would not make much of a difference is definitely leaning more toward good news.  I know that Sheila was very relieved to hear that she could stop treatment with a clear conscience.  

We left the hospital feeling pretty good about our decisions, past and present.  We hadn't really been second guessing our decision to end treatment a few months ago but, actually, we still felt as though a large weight was lifted off our shoulders during today's visit.

On a sidenote...  As we were saying our goodbyes to the oncologist since we are now closing this latest, long and grueling chapter of Sheila's journey through breast cancer, I asked about a specialist for my own health problems.  I quickly explained about my mast cell disease and it being classified as a myeloproliferative disorder.  The oncologist quickly asked, "Did you say mast cells?"  

When I confirmed that I was indeed talking about mast cells she excitedly said "YES!"  She then told us about this oncologist in this same department who just spoke at a conference in Chicago this past weekend about...  mast cell disease.  Then she said, "Well...  I guess we will see each other again as we pass each other in the halls here!"