This seems like the easiest way to keep people updated on Sofia's cancer treatment and progress. I tried Facebook but the 400 word limits were driving me nuts. Anyway, below is the latest.

We got the pathology report back from the hospital regarding Sofia's cancer and have met with the oncologist to decide on a treatment schedule. Unfortunately Sofia has a lot of high risk factors associated with her cancer such as: she is young, premenopausal, pregnant, her cancer is aggressive (9/9 on the aggressiveness scale), the tumor was large (8 cm which is baseball size), it is non responsive to hormones, it is Herp2 positive and she had a lymph node with cancer cells in it. Most of the tumor was what they call DCIS (Ductal Carcinoma in Situ) which they refer to as being precancerous, but there was some invasive cancer as well.

On the bright side all the margins around the tumor were clear of cancer. The smallest clear margin between the tumor and her chest muscles was around 2 cm. Also the blood vessels all appeared clear of cancer and the other 13 lymph nodes they took were all clear including all of the nodes from under her arm. It is also good that she is well past the first trimester and our latest ultrasound shows the baby doing just fine. She is healing very well from the mastectomy. The surgeon stated that she looked like she was two weeks farther along in the healing process than she is.

Since she is pregnant they can't do the scans they would normally do to see if the cancer has spread to other areas of her body so they haven't staged her cancer yet. They are going ahead with an aggressive treatment schedule. She went in for an echocardiogram to check her heart on Monday. Apparently the chemo drugs can cause heart problems so they make sure it is healthy to start with. Tuesday she went in and had another surgery to install a port under her collar bone which provides an easily accessible spot to administer the chemo drugs and take blood etc. Yesterday we went to a chemo class and tomorrow morning she starts chemotherapy.

Her treatment schedule will start with 12 weeks of AC chemotherapy which is nasty for Sofia but should be safe for the baby. It is the stuff that makes you sick, loose all your hair and many other fun side effects. They say they have several new drugs that she can take to control the nausea so hopefully that won't be too difficult for her. The hair loss will be exceptionally difficult for her I think and the fatigue will most likely be very difficult as well. This chemo is administered once every 3 weeks to give the body time to recover between sessions. So she will have 4 sessions of this.

The timing works out well so we won't have to have the baby too early; we should be able to have her a couple weeks early which would be considered full term. Then Sofia can start the second round of chemo.

Her second round of chemo will be Taxol and Herceptin. She will get this weekly for 9 weeks. The doctor says this isn't as rough as the AC but isn't safe for the baby so we are glad that the timing worked out so well for that.

After the chemo she will have to do radiation therapy and will keep taking the Herceptin for a total of a year so we are looking at about 15 months of therapy. The Herceptin is an extremely expensive drug that targets the Herp2 positive aspect of her cancer. I think it runs about $100,000 for the year which I think is crazy.

Anyway, that brings you all up to date. Now we just wait and hope the side effects won't be too horrible for her. Thank you for all of your help, prayers and offers of help. It has been wonderful to see the outpouring of love that has come our way. We are very blessed to have so many wonderful friends and family here to support us.

We love you,
Keeley