Updates

1. Fertility Preservation - I met with the physicians at UPenn. I am getting 2/3 of this funded through Fertile Hope. The rest of this is coming from the eggsicles' future grandparents. I start treatments within 1-2 days and it can last up to two weeks. I should have the eggs cultivated either the day after christmas, christmas eve or december 23 if all goes as planned. Just beware, I might be extra moody and want more chocolate than usual. UPenn is taking appropriate measures with monitoring my hormone levels due to the cancer. I will be taking a drug call Femara to cap my estrogen, which brings it down 2/3 to what an average woman would have if they were undergoing fertility treatments.

2. Chemotherapy - I chose to go with my treatment at Sloan. I start on December 29. I will be going every other Wednesday for eight rounds. Ideally I would love people to join me...I will bribe you with the yummy Sloan snacks (i.e. pretzels, graham crackers, and saltines) or with some yummy NYC local foods. Also we can watch many episodes of Sex in the City, Big Bang Theory, Its Always Sunny, Roswell, Dinosaurs, Dexter, and Mad Men...if anyone has some Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes, I need to catch up on those too. Chemotherapy will consist of 4 rounds (every 2 weeks) of EC then 4 rounds of T (every two weeks). For your reading pleasure I kindly linked these drugs to Wikipedia...

• E = Epirubicin 
• C = Cyclophosphamide
• T = Taxol

Sometime this week I am going to talk a little about controversial topics i.e. causes of cancer in our environment and foods. I really truly believe that these are the causes. Genetics comes into play for some people but not all. I strongly think mine was due to multiple factors, in which I will talk in more detail when I get some time. 

• Parabens in all my beauty products, which are known to mimic estrogens in our bodies.
• Birth Control Pills, which gave my body unnecessary levels of hormonal changes. 
• Alcohol , in which I kindly indulged in too much in undergrad
• Diet, which I know a lot about, but didn't follow until I was 22. Most Animal byproducts are full of hormones and steroids so the animals can be larger and produce more milk, eggs etc. Also anything that is full of preservatives (i.e. cold cuts, canned veggies, chips etc) somehow convert into hormones in our bodies. 

Besides updating everyone about how I am doing. I want to use this blog to educate people about what I deeply believe was the cause of my cancer. I do not have genetic breast cancer. I am estrogen positive and it is a very high (95%) estrogen positive, which leads me to believe it was a combination of all of these environmental factors over the last 26yrs of my life. If we apply estrogen on our skin, drink it, eat it, and take it in our medicines, especially us women whom produce estrogen naturally, our bodies will react. Too much of anything causes our bodies to work in overdrive, which increases cellular damage. Cellular damage = tumor growth. therefore, cancer develops.