Breast Cancer Journal - Entry 16

Lovelle Svart passed away on Friday, September 28, 2007. She fought lung cancer for five years. The Oregonian newspaper printed updates and hosted her online journal and videos. She chose to take a prescribed overdose as allowed by Oregon's Death With Dignity Act.

She wanted to journal this final phase of her life because she felt that we, as a society, need to talk about death and dying. Rita and I agree. Our society has made even just talking about death and the issues surrounding it, almost taboo, when it is a natural part of the life cycle. Why does our society skip around this major part of nature, leaving us nearly incapable of dealing with death when it finally does get right in our faces?

Rita and I each made the decision to not read about Lovelle's journey as it was happening because for Rita, it was too close to home and she felt she shouldn't worry about my early demise right now. As for me, I felt that I might not be able to handle the thoughts and concerns reading and watching Lovelle's entries could bring up. I also think that planning too much for my end of life right now is a bit premature.

I have since watched Lovelle's journal entries. She did a wonderful thing, showing others this intimate time, giving us a chance to learn something.

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I stumbled upon what looks to be a second line of attack for HER-2 positive cancer. It's called Tykerb (lapatinib) and is to be tried after chemotherapy and Herceptin. So far, it has not shown to cause heart damage. It comes in pill form and is taken once a day, whereas Herceptin requires me to have a three hour infusion. Wowee! I'm going to ask my oncologist about this newly approved drug. What wonderful news!

Here is a link to one of the articles regarding Tykerb:

http://www.healthcentral.com/breast-cancer/c/78/7514/her2-heres-news/

Now, my only problem would be determining whether or not my cancer has come back or grown.