Five years NEAD!
In the cancer world, there is NED (No Evidence of Disease). In the metastatic cancer world, there is NEAD (No Evidence of Active Disease). I'll tell you my story of NEAD. Five years ago today, after having seven rounds of chemo (Taxotere/Herceptin/Perjeta), I had surgery. The cancer cells had shrunk, but had hit a platau. Chemo was taking a toll on me; every session got progressively harder. So, even though there was no evidence that surgery would improve my life span*, we (myself, my surgeon, and my oncologist) decided that it couldn't hurt, and just might help. * It's stage 4. The purpose of having a mastectomy is to prevent the cancer from leaving the spot of origin to go to other organs. That had already happened. My breast cancer had already spread, to my left lung. On September 11, 2015, I had a left modified radical mastectomy, with lymph node involvement. 12 out of 24 lymph nodes under my armpit were removed. This resulted in numbness, soreness, and a