Please Pray For Barbara

From Susan S:

My youngest sister, Barbara, 52 years old, is now fighting her 3rd round of Breast Cancer. She had it first in 1992, then a more virilent strain showed up 2 years ago. Now a different but still breast cancer has appeared in the skin on her chest. She will get 25 radiation treatments, 2 different oral Chemos, plus surgery to remove what they can. It is moving fast. She sent this letter today.

"I saw the radiologist today. He said that I was between a rock and a hard place. He, the surgeon, and the oncologist will discuss and let me know on Friday if they will still want to do surgery on Monday. He might want to start radiation now because there is no way the surgeon can get it all - even the area visible to the naked eye. It has spread on the skin in a noticeable way in the past 2 weeks.

The radiation treatment will have a 20% change of extraordinarily bad consequences including ribs that will just break due to the bone marrow being killed, and/or a chest wound that will not heal - period. he said less radiation than that won't do much good, and of course even with radiation it might just slow it down for awhile.

He did say that without radiation, the cancer will do what the radiation might do. It will just eat my chest up. He said there is no medicine, food, or anything that I can do now to make it go better. He said there is no test that can be done to determine if my chest can withstand the treatment. (i had 37 treatments in 92-93). he said the consequences probably wouldn't start until 6 to 12 months after radiation was done. he said they would probably do 25 treatments (mon - fri for 5 weeks.) will take the chemo pills at the same time. Tykerb & Xeloda - look them up. Very festive.

I'm going to be as positive about this until I start screaming - will holler out when that begins.

I've been eating chocolate all day. It doesn't hurt.

Please pray for my baby sister.

Susan S.

And the latest update:

My sister Barbara had surgery yesterday to remove what they could of the cancer. There was more than they thought because it is spreading faster than was at first suspected. I told her we are praying for her. Please keep her in your prayers.