From the first moment my wife discovered
she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even
ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have
received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than
mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started
this blog…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for
answers stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The
following entry appeared in March of 2015.
One of my favorite
movies is GALAXY QUEST.
In it, characters
from a defunct STAR TREK-act-alike TV show are thrown into a real world alien
conflict and expected to be the parts they acted…
At one point,
Sigourney Weaver (who plays Gwen DeMarco who plays Lt. Tawny Madison) and Tim
Allen (who plays Jason Nesmith who plays Captain Peter Quincy Taggart) have to
cross through metal chompy crusher things and then run over a one-foot wide
bridge that passes over an endlessly deep hole that is windy…all while aliens
are trying to kill them with phasers.
Sigourney Weaver
stops and utters an expletive that is VOCALIZED as “Screw this! The sucker who
wrote this scene should die!” If you watch her lips, she utters quite a
different expletive…
After hearing my
wife’s reaction to the recommendation by the American Association of Cancer
Research, I might have heard one expletive – but I’m pretty sure the one she
was thinking was akin to the one in GALAXY QUEST.
Why?
First: What does
tamoxifen do? Some breast cancer cells require estrogen to grow.
Estrogen locks on to a cancer cell in certain places and helps it grow. When a
person takes Tamoxifen, it’s broken up into parts that lock into the same
places that estrogen does – but they STOP the cancer cell from growing.
“…tamoxifen acts like a key broken off in the lock that prevents any other key
from being inserted, preventing estrogen from binding to its receptor.”
There is also a
second methodology for treating breast
cancer that is NOT being changed at this time and that is the use of aromatase
inhibitors that work by stopping the
production of estrogen. [This is the drug regimen my wife is following at
present]: Anastrazole is called an aromatase inhibitor whose primary problem is
that it weakens bone structure; though it CAN cause: “Constipation,
diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, upset stomach, loss of appetite, body aches and
pains, breast swelling/tenderness/pain, headache, dry mouth, scratchy throat,
increased cough, dizziness, trouble sleeping, tiredness/weakness, hot
flashes/hot flushes, vaginal bleeding, hair thinning, and weight change can
occur…mental/mood changes, numbness/tingling/swelling of the hands or feet,
persistent cough, unusual vaginal discharge/burning/itching/odor, unusually
stiff muscles, pain/redness/swelling of the arms or legs, vision changes, bone
pain, bone fracture, signs of infection…”; Letrozole can cause “hot flashes,
hair loss, joint/bone/muscle pain, tiredness, unusual sweating, nausea,
diarrhea, dizziness, sleeping trouble, (unlikely) bone fractures, mental/mood
changes, swelling of arms/legs, blurred vision…(rarely) blood clots.”
Any time a drug is
taken, its purpose is to change the body in some way – INTENTIONALLY for the
better, but there are almost always side effects. With tamoxifen, the main ones
are: hypercalcemia (A higher-than-normal level of calcium in the blood
[causing] loss of appetite, nausea, thirst, fatigue, muscle weakness,
restlessness, and confusion…constipation, form a heart block, lead to calcium
stones in the urinary tract, impair kidney function, and interfere with the
absorption of iron)…as well as
causing “hot flashes, nausea, leg cramps, muscle aches, hair thinning, or
headache…(unlikely) vision changes (e.g., blurred vision), eye pain, easy
bruising/bleeding, mental/mood changes, swelling of ankles/feet, unusual
tiredness.”
While it is TRUE that taking tamoxifen DOES lower the risk of breast cancer
recurrence, it seems to me that researchers should CONTINUE to find new ways of
dealing with this devastating disease!
References: http://www.rxlist.com/arimidex-drug/consumer-side-effects-precautions.htm,
http://www.rxlist.com/femara-drug/consumer-side-effects-precautions.htm
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