#taxol

Drug Action Detail

Commonly used anti-cancer drugs (eg Taxol) target microtubules – structures inside a cell essential for them to divide. This study shows such drugs cause defective formation of mitotic spindles – microtubule structures that segregate the chromosomes during cell division – and provides insight into how resistance to these drugs develops and how to counteract it

Read the published research paper here

Image from work by Amber S. Zhou and colleagues

Department of Cell and Regenerative Biology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in PLOS Biology, October 2023

Three more chemotherapy treatments. The fatigue has really hit with these last two (numbers 8 & 9 of the taxol), which was expected. Only 3 left. Then hopefully my eyebrows will start growing back. (My hair is already growing again.)

I get about a 4 week break before surgery. At this point, I want a double-mastectomy. I really don’t want to go through this again. So that would be mid-February. I should be healed enough to go see Captain Marvel at the theater in early March. (At least I really really hope so.)

After surgery, I get another 4 week break before starting radiation. (Mid-March) From what I’ve read, radiation will be 5 days a week for 5 to 6 weeks. (Through end of April, finishing before Avengers: End Game comes out.) But that won’t be for a while. One thing at a time.

Finishing chemo is my next goal. Not sure how I’ll celebrate that. Maybe I’ll get that 13th Doctor coat from Her Universe I’ve been eyeing. Or maybe I’ll finally learn to sew. Or I’ll splurge and do both.