Update: Still stage 4, still alive, now on Enhertu

[Sparkly]

Hi DU friends!

Just checking in! I made it past another birthday, and more happily, I made it to my miracle granddaughter's second!!!

I still have serous endometrial carcinoma metastasized to my lungs. It never even reached a lymph node, but Kaiser made me wait so long for surgery from an in-network surgeon when it was first diagnosed, it got through the pelvic wall and into my bloodstream, apparently. I will never stop wishing I'd insisted harder, or offered to travel or something, anything, but I did all the pleading I could. Too late now.

Regrets aside, the cancer is still HER2-positive, which means it can be treated with Herceptin (Trastuzumab), a monoclonal antibody, but that stopped working. Enhertu adds deruxtecan, which is the chemo "payload," so it's an "antibody-drug conjugate" (ADC).

The chemo is not as bad as carbotaxol. It causes fatigue and nausea, and some people lose all their hair (mine has thinned a bit). The good news is my tumors were smaller on the last scan. Dangerous side effects happen to lungs and heart and I had a little scare there -- some odd "nodules" like bronchiolitis (?) that made me afraid they were going to stop my infusions -- but a pulmonologist said they didn't look like Enhertu caused them, and I think I'm okay.

Hope all of you and yours are doing well, too! Every day matters. Hang in there!!