Pondering the value of drug options

I'm not a good candidate for many of the drugs that are now used to treat sarcoidosis because of the recent breast cancer, and there are no FDA-approved drugs for Sarcoid. The Prednisone makes me miserable at high doses, and they can't give me any more of the inhaled steroids. But, the symptoms are not getting better and some are slowly getting worse.

So, today I met with my rheumetologist again. He spoke to my pulmonologist last week, again, and together they had already decided that my best next option is Methotrexate, a low-dose chemo drug with a chaser of prescription-strength folic acid to help counter some of the side effects.

The problem is that I talk at length with my doctor, and I think I understand what the options are and what the side effects are and what the benefit will be; then, I go home and look it up. After reading entries from the NIH and Medline and Cancer treatment sites, I'm now scared and am wondering if I just shouldn't resolve myself to living with the symptoms and disease I have rather than taking something that may make me even more tired, more sick and more miserable! After reading through these sites and all of the warnings, I'm starting to think that stabbing chest pain and pressure, shortness of breath, wheezing and a chronic hoarse voice may not be so bad after all!

This is like the drug ads on TV. Everything sounds great until they start reading the disclaimers and I begin to wonder why anyone would take any drug at all! The cures always sound worse than the disease they are supposed to treat.

I took the prescriptions to the pharmacy, and I'll likely pick them up, but taking that first dose may take some time.

Avon Walk Again!

This is it! Saturday and Sunday we walk 39 miles to show just how much we hate breast cancer...or something like that! Someone asked me why I do this and how I can push muself to walk 39 miles in 2 days. My response was to simply explain that cancer is not for wimps and so I am showing the cancer that I'm not a wimp and that I have no intention of letting it or the sarcoidosis run my life.

I'm walking for the women who can't; I'm walking so my daughters won't have to sit in their doctor's office someday and be told they have breast cancer; I'm walking so someone can find a cure so other women won't have to have their breasts cut off; and I'm walking because I need to prove to myself that the cancer and sarcoid don't define who I am.

Melissa Etheridge wrote a wonderful song for survivors, "I Run for Life". I walk for all the same things.