Taxol?

Next Tuesday, the 28^th, I am scheduled to begin my Taxol regiment. I want to cry. The Adriamycin/Cytoxan has been brutal and I so desperately want to be done. I want this “cancer” portion of my life to be over and be able to move on, to what, I don't know, but on from this.
I've been wondering if I should do the Taxol at all. At times, when I think about it, it seems like overkill, but when dealing with something that could take my life, is there such a thing as overkill? I sent my oncologist an email today with several questions, asking him to explain to me why he felt I should undergo further chemotherapy and what the long-term repercussions of this particular chemo could be. I also asked him what he thought of the “forks over knives” view of things, particularly that a vegan diet can slow or even stop the growth of cancer. This was his response:

There is no guarantee of benefit with any of this therapy. It is possible you were cured as soon as your surgical wound was closed in the OR. It is possible we could treat you with chemotherapy constantly with a variety of drugs for many months and the disease may still come back. Clinical trials would suggest that with your particular disease parameters there appears to be statistically greater benefit to adding Taxol (that tends to be much easier to tolerate than Adriamycin and Cytoxan) than without. Unfortunately at an individual level, this benefit can only be expressed qualitatively and not quantitatively. It is like saying there is a 23% chance of rain this afternoon; if it rains, do you only get 23% wet.
2: There is a potential for permanent nerve symptoms about the hands and feet but that tends to be uncommon and mild.
3: My challenge to schools of thought such as "forks over knives" is to show the data in humans in similar clinical setting as you that specifically support what is being promoted. There are no data to say a vegan diet can be even remotely compared in efficacy in therapy for breast cancer.

Having said all that, the choice of what to do is yours. This issues cannot be effectively and adequately be discussed in an email like this. I would be happy to sit down with you and discuss all this further before you decide whether to continue with chemotherapy or not.

So the reality is that no one really knows if I need the next twelve weeks of chemo, and I want to run screaming for the hills, or bury my head in the sand and pretend that if I do nothing, all of this will go away. And maybe it would. Maybe it's already gone. But then again, maybe it isn't, and while the thought of spending my summer hooked to an IV isn't exactly my idea of a great time, it may, in the end, buy me years more of life.
I'm tired. I'm tired of being drugged up, tired of feeling weak, tired of fighting to muster the energy for every day activities. These months of chemo tagged on to two years of severe depression are taking their tole, and I'm just bone-weary tired. I do see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know it's there and I will be basking in its glow sooner than I know it. In the mean time, I ask for your prayers and rest in the strong arms of the One Who will get me through.