Today is day one for my long term medications. The things I have to do now that active treatment is over. The things that will change my body chemistry and help stop reoccurrence.
The pills that subsequently require *other* pills or supplements to handle side effects.
This is my PSA that with some cancers, treatment never ends. I know I've harped on this before. I have to fall somewhere between grateful that they exist and skeptical about whether the risks outweigh the benefits. I just ask that if anyone wants to say, "it's better than being dead!" , you should probably keep that to yourself and reconsider the logic.
For anyone curious about the science, I am taking a CDK 4/6 inhibitor called Verzenio. It's widely prescribed and was developed I believe to give to Stage 4 patients as a means to shrink tumors that can't be operated on. Or shouldn't be operated on - not all cancer surgery is a good idea, oddly enough. But more recently, Verzenio has been prescribed as a preventative measure for two years. Is this big pharma greed or does it work? Research is showing that it works... But also that big pharma is making bank. Of course I have conflicting feelings about it - knowing that the side effects WILL show up. I follow comments in medical support groups and have had several meetings with pharmacists - this is not an easily tolerated medication. Food restrictions, ongoing nausea and stomach problems, I've even read of people that had to avoid raw fruits/vegetables for the years they are taking these meds. So with the dietary advice I'm getting (and with it, the pressure that it's supposedly under my control whether cancer returns) - it's a big frustration for me.
The other medication is to prevent my body from turning available aromatase into estrogen. That beautiful, terrible estrogen that makes our joints work and our brains work and many important organs work. Estrogen that is being suppressed in my ovaries but is still produced by body fat and other organs. I'm post menopausal but am also being drop kicked into the estrogen levels of an 80 year old woman.
Hence the vitamin supplements and calcium and DEXA body scans to catch osteoporosis... I can't take Vitamin C or certain antioxidants and will continue to have a weakened immune system. That UTI that put me in the hospital during chemo? It's highly likely that I'll have more of those since estrogen, obviously, is very important for healthy bladder function.
I'm trying to find a healthy mental outlook for this. The end date for these meds is so so so far away. Verzenio is two years and the AI is ten years. When I'm done with this medication - my kids will be 27, 25, 23, 16 and 14. Finian will be FOURTEEN and the older ones will be out and launched into the world. A full decade of my life.
And yeah yeah, it's better than being dead! Counting years and wanting to be there for my kids has been a huge motivator - but it's a lot to mentally come to terms with. Somebody show me the healthy balance between wanting to stay informed and just blindly taking the pills and hoping for the best.
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