A Little Background Info on Cilgamore

Cilgamore is the name that my friend, Kim and I have named the cancer. So hence, the name on my blog. The picture at the top is one that she had made for a t-shirt for me, and I just love the visual! I think I need a light sabre picture on here somewhere too!

So, Cilgamore, what exactly is it that I am battling here? For those of you who aren't sure what I have or what is going on with me, now is your opportunity to be educated! Back in December 2001, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was stage I, treatable, and with a 90% cure rate. I underwent surgery and chemotherapy. Fast forward to right now, I have some very small lesions in my liver that have returned (think mm's) that are breast cancer lesions. It is NOT liver cancer. The good news is that they are breast cancer, and there are a whole lot more drugs and treatments for that than there is for liver cancer. The bad news is that my disease is considered stage IV or metastatic. There is not yet a cure for breast cancer that has spread beyond the breast, but they are discovering new treatments all of the time. Really being a stage IV breast cancer survivor is not a death sentence as it once was years ago. There are so many women who are living many, many years with this disease. It is almost to the point where they will consider it a chronic disease. The reason at this time that there is not a cure, is because women with stage IV, or mets for short, will eventually die of their disease. It is considered a cure when that person dies of something else such as old age, or other causes. I don't guess that includes stepping out on the street and getting hit by the proverbial bus! Ha, ha. Just a side note of humor here. So right now, I am being treated with a pretty tough combo of drugs (3 weeks on and 1 week off), but they are working well as of my last scan 3 weeks ago. My oncologist said that she thought the shrinkage was significant considering I had only had 2 cycles of treatment. The goal is to continue on this combo as long as it is working and I am tolerating it. Then I would hopefully be able to go onto a hormonal treatment which can be less toxic and have less side effects. I will always have to be on a treatment of some kind. The hope is that the ones that work will work for a long, long time keeping things stable or unable to be seen on scans until the next treatment is needed. As they invent more and more new drugs, then they just stretch things out even longer. Really, the best thing for all of this would be a cure! So we keep on fighting and hoping!

That is Cilgamore in a very small nutshell. I'm trying to keep the details to a minimum to keep from confusion. I hope that helps those of you who weren't quite sure what the deal was with me, and who the heck Cilgamore is (slowly putting him into the past tense: was)!