The new spot in my breast is apparently a cancer recurrence. The full pathology report indicates it's highly ER/PR + and Her2/neu negative, as in the past.
My oncologist will start me on Arimidex, the remaining estrogen blocker that I have not already tried. I'll take a pill daily. Dr. G says that stopping the tamoxifen will help anyway, and I may even lose some of the weight it's added to my 5'4" frame. Dr. G also told me the risk for ipsilateral (same side) metachronous (recurrent) breast cancer is about 14%. He thinks the safest bet about the potential lung lesion is that it, too is breast cancer and therefore would likely respond to systemic treatment.
Arimidex (anastrazole) is closely related to Femara (letrozole), which gave me good coverage for about 2.5 years. The side effects are osteoporosis, which would be addressed by continuing me on IV Zometa, and joint pain, for which I'll have pain killers. Who knows? I may get a long enough run on Arimidex that by the time it stops working, something new will come along.
So this is good news all around. I moved up and down on the merry-go-round, but everything is still very treatable. A new drug for a new year....
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