Angela the Pink Tiger (Breast Cancer Survivor): Three Years

March 2009

I hit my 3-year anniversary as a survivor in March 2009. It was an exciting day. I thought at first that it would be bittersweet like the 2-year anniversary was. I grew more anxious about it as the day approached. Once it arrived, however, I felt like shouting my joy from the rooftops.

Three years and still counting!!!

As mentioned in earlier posts, my tumor was triple negative. That means it wouldn't respond to a whole range of hormone-based treatments if it recurred, since my tumor wasn't fed by estrogen or progesterone. Also, my tumor was did not show an overabundance of Her-2/neu receptors. That's a good thing, but it also means I don't have Herceptin as a drug that help me in the event of a recurrence.

Being triple negative means I don't have to take Tamoxifen for 5 years after chemo and radiation. It wouldn't do me any good. I'm happy not to have to deal with the unpleasant side effects that can accompany Taxomifen, but sometimes it's unsettling knowing that my only defense is "watchful waiting" and that's not a defense at all. That's a call to arms if something resurfaces.

So imagine my distress when a study was published last year showing that triple negative breast cancer survivors tend to have more aggressive tumors, and recurrences tend to happen within the first three years. (My tumor was as aggressive as you can get, scoring an unfortunate 9 of 9 on the Blooms-Richards scale.) Triple negative breast cancer people tend to have a higher mortality rate than our hormone positive counterparts. Younger women tend to be more likely to get triple negative breast cancer.

Women with hormone positive tumors tend to get recurrences within the first five years. That I made it three years without a recurrence is a really, really big deal. It doesn't necessarily mean that I'll never get a recurrence, but the odds of one happening now are considerably less likely than they were a year ago. Hooray!

So enough for now about the cancer talk.

Another momentous event occured for our family in March 2009. Kelric turned three! We had a birthday party, complete with a cupcake cake made to look like "Frank" from the movie Cars. (Way to go, Central Market!)

We had a red car pinata for the celebration, filled with toys rather than candy. Unfortunately, the weather had turned cold and wet so the planned outing at the park was scrapped and the party was held at home. That didn't bother the birthday boy, but it did pose a problem for Mom and Dad. Where to hang the pinata?

We opted for the old "pinata on a stick" option. That is to say, Dad held put it on the business end of a broom and the kids took turns whacking it.

Unfortunately, the silly thing wouldn't break! The kid-sized broom handle Kelric and Julian were using to hit the pinata started getting all kinds of kinks in it while the pinata itself remained undamaged. Now what? After some deliberation, we decided to encourage jumping. That worked!

The party for the three-year-old was great fun. Later in the month Daddy turned...another year older. Kelric announced that Daddy should have a firetruck birthday cake, so that's what I got. (Thanks again, Central Market!)