Kadcyla

Hi Sazbar

Welcome to the forum and sorry to hear that you have been diagnosed with breast cancer.  While I didn't have to have Kadcyla I noticed that you haven't had any answers yet so I thought I reply to you anyway.  Hopefully someone with the relevant experience will be along soon.

Best of luck with the new treatment.

Best wishes

Daisy53

I'm in a very similar position, 6 rounds of chemo, lumpectomy and waiting on the call for radiotherapy (had my 2 planning appointments) and start kadcyla on Wednesday. Not really sure what to expect as I too was hoping to return to work. Have you had any kadcyla yet? I had a port inserted this week as I've terrible veins too.

I haven’t started the Kadcyla yet but was really hoping that once i’d had the radiotherapy my treatment would be over.

I have an appointment with occupational health this week about going back to work but the medical advice has been not to go ( I work in a secondary school). 

To be honest I don’t understand why it’s necessary to have so much more treatment.

Please keep in touch and let me know how you get on?

I have HER2 positive breast  cancer and started off with a 2cm tumour and 1 cancerous lymph node. After surgery they got good clear margins on the tumour which had reduced by 90%, so there was a tiny 2cm in the part they removed.. all 26 lymph nodes were clear. BUT as I had 6 rounds of chemo before surgery including 3 phesgo injections they want there to be no signs of the the tumour at all. The kadcyla is the best insurance policy against a little cancer having wandered off elsewhere and creating a stage 4 occurrence. I was wobbly on moving away from phesgo but the kadcyla has better success rates. 

I have to let my work know by Friday if I can return on the kadcyla... I'm dreading the potential side effects.... next week shall tell a lot!

I’m HER2 positive as well. My tumour was 7cm and there was evidence of cancer in the tissue around the nodes. The original chemo worked well and really shrunk the tumour but made me very poorly for one week out of the 3. I suppose I should be grateful as the Kadcyla is very expensive.

I’ve already had 6 months off and now my pay has been halved so I’m going to try and return. 

Are you having the Kadcyla at the same time as your radiotherapy? I’ve been told I must have 3 weeks radiotherapy first.

Good luck. 

I'm set for 10 sessions of radiotherapy but the kadcyla will start before the radiotherapy which should be in about 3 weeks time, I'm all marked up and just waiting on a date.. I had a 4th phesgo injection while I was waiting on the kadcyla approval and port being put in. I'm quite nervous about the potential side effects as the chemo wiped me out, not sure I could do another 42 weeks if its anywhere near as bad. I love in hope that things won't be too bad! 

Hi all, I finished my 14 cycles of kadcyla on the 8th June. I returned to work around the 4th cycle on a phased return ( nhs ) working in community as a nurse. I did at times think what the hell am I doing but for me, mentally, I needed my other life back. I just had tiredness for few days after kadcyla which I detested going for to be honest. My breast nurse informed me plenty of women returned to work on it and done very well. So good luck and hopefully it will finish before you know it xx

Thank you so much for your reply, you must be delighted to be finished! I'm due to go tomorrow for my first session and I'm already exhausted, so not sure how much exhaustion I can take. The oncologist said the ladies currently on it are all back at work which gave me some hope. I totally get what you mean about needing some normality back... I'm kind of fed up being the sick person.. it's been a long year!

Hi, I’ve been following along as I started Kadcyla last week. Yesterday was day 6 and I started with chills and fluctuations in my temp. Well, I hit the magic number where I’ve been instructed to call triage, and I was told to go to the hospital. No infection, thank goodness, but some values a bit whacky as par for the course with this chemo ride. But, apart from that, I’ve been ok, just more tired. It’s very early days, but m trying to stay hopeful the SE won’t be anything like TCHP.

Best wishes, that’s one done remember. Keep going x