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| Just a quick(-ish) cancer update. I'm finished with chemo and radiation and I have Herceptin infusions until the end of May.\n\n They have talked about putting me on a hormone blocking drug (Letrozole), which I thought would happen after the Herceptin was finished, so I thought I still had months to think about it. Nope. Last time I saw my oncologist she said that I \"could\" start on it right away and I would be on it for five years.\n\n I have had a lot of concerns about this drug. It has some terrible side-effects and lots of women stop taking it because it's so awful. Things like cognitive impact, bad mood swings, really bad achiness. People say the drug ages you ten years overnight. \n\n Anyway, if that was all there was to it I could take it and just stop if the side effects were too bad, but there's more to the story:\n 1) Taking this drug only boosts my ten-year survival odds by 1% (boosts from 94% to 95%).\n 2) Another possible side effect is bone loss and osteoporosis. To counteract that, they would want to put me on a bone strengthening drug. Ironically, this bone strengthening drug causes osteonecrosis of the jaw in 9% of people. That basically means that your jaw dies and rots and you lose half of your face. \n\n The bone loss, osteoporosis and osteonecrosis are side effects that you don't know you have until it's \"too late\", so I can't just try it and stop if I get them.\n\n My appointment with the oncologist was on December 5th. I got the Rx filled for the Letrozole but I haven't started taking it. I've been thinking about it a lot, and I've decided that I'm not going to take it. Of course I may change my mind next time I see the oncologist (late February), but for now that's my decision.\n\n I've read that they're testing the combination of Berberine and Curcumin for stifling hormone-positive breast cancer, and they're finding it to be as effective as these really toxic drugs. My oncologist is not on board with me taking those things instead because they're not \"proven\" (yet), but I think that's what I'm going to do.\n\n At the end of the day, I'm 58 years old, and if I take Letrozole for five years, I'll be finished when I'm 63. To that I say no thanks - I want to enjoy my quality of life for the next five years, not decimate my health and lose more of my remaining \"robust and fit\" time in an attempt to improve my ten-year cancer survival by 1%. There's more to life than not dying of cancer.
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