How long have you been Stage IV?

Since December 2020. On Ibrance, Fulvestant and Zometa.

I have been on Capecitabine now for 8 months. Do have some bothersome side effects some days but have had a good response (reduction) in my liver lesion, so am trying to stay the course. Worse thing is loss of appetite and weight loss.

Coming up 9 months - I was dxed de novo with "innumerable" bone mets 14 August 2023. I am just about to begin cycle 8 of Letrozole/Ribociclib.

I'm officially in year 3, but I think I had been metastatic for at least a year or two before it was found….probably more. Still on first-line treatment.

I have severe scoliosis and have struggled on and off since high school with back pain from it. I was diagnosed early stage in 2006 at age 29 and it had been 15 years. I was at low risk for recurrence after it being so long ago and the fact that I was 1mm shy of being Stage 1 with no node involvement. It looked to be a perfectly contained little marble back then. I'm 47 now. I was 44 when it came back.

I needed to get a nerve ablation for the pain from scoliosis and my orthopedist needed an MRI to verify the nerve he needed to hit. Lo and behold, he not only found the problem disk, but he also found innumerable mets to my lumbar spine. Ha! Poor guy. He was white as a ghost and bumbled in the door. I knew it was bad immediately. In fact, I knew it was cancer as soon as he looked at me. I had seen that look before on a radiologist 15 years earlier.

Anyway, my first official CT has so far been my worst. Abraxane really kicked in after about 3 months and everything just kind of went dormant. I had a little "rough patch" on my right pleural lining that was barely visible, but turns out it was the reason for what I thought was my asthma flare-up. It was actually a little bit of a pleural effusion from it and it was indeed a little cluster of MBC cells.

I feel great, honestly, all things considered. I felt better almost immediately after my first chemo cycle. Two cycles later, I had virtually no back pain. I feel fortunate. I think I'll make it to 5 years. The Onc doesn't like to make predictions on shelf-life, but he is optimistic I'll be around for a while yet.

When/if the Phesgo and Ibrance kind of maintenance regimen fails, Enhertu is my next stop. It's been on my radar since my initial diagnosis. I was entered into one of the DESTINY trials, trialing it as a first-line treatment for MBC vs chemo, but sadly, I was rejected. My IHC wasn't high enough for the trial, even though my FSH was. Then, they tried to enroll me in a DESTINY trial, trialing the same Enhertu vs Chemo as first-line, but for HER2Low, but my FSH was too high to be considered low for the trial purposes!! Hahah! Trials are so picky.

Thanks @moderators! I appreciate it. Figured I might as well join since I've creeped around for so long. :-)