what i need to hear {whisper a prayer}

She was diagnosed with “HER 2 Positive” cancer. This is a very aggresive cancer and by the time it shows up on scans, it most generally is too late to treat. Because of this, starting on August 28th, she will have a very strong chemo called Cytoxan and Adrianycin every other Thursday for 8 weeks. The day after the chemo treatment, she will have an injection that will go directly to her bones to help fight infection and to keep her bonemarrow counts up. She will lose her hair around 16 days after the first chemo treatment. She will be nauseated and around the 7th or 8th day after her chemo treatment, she will probably be so weak that it would be hard for her to even brush her teeth.

After those 8 weeks, for the next 12 weeks, one day each week -she will have another type of chemo treatment called taxotere. It is not as severe as the first 8 weeks. But she still may have some of the same side effects as the first 8 weeks.

After those 12 weeks, every week – one day a week for a full year, she will have a drug administered just like the chemo is administered called Herceptin. This may go from one full year to two years but they won’t know until then. She will not lose her hair or get sick from this but the problem is that it could make her heart become weak. It also can cause congestive heart failure. They will have to monitor her heart every week for this.

Of course, this was not what we were hoping to hear and they were quite frank with us about the seriousness of this type of cancer. Without this treatment and because of her young age, the cancer would definitely come back. But with all this treatment, she has an 80 – 90% chance that it will not.

Staci teaches down syndrum, autistic and severe behavior children at her school. She wants to try to teach during this as much as possible but she is also concerned about the stress this will put on her students because of the inconsistency of her not being there all the time.