April 9th

I have been scanned now there is a plan! I had a PET scan and MRI on Thursday and met with the oncologist on Friday. These new drugs are doing a good job. I was super relieved to hear that. It was funny (not really) when we first met with the oncologist there were computer issues and he was not able to go through most of the scan results with us and based most of the drug reactions to the measure of a tumor marker (that is a measure from a blood test, I believe it is a measure of enzymes to see how active the cancer is) anyway, it went way down which was super positive, but I am one who likes to actually see that the actual cancer has diminished. That is probably part of my personality and enhanced somewhat by my job with things being very definitive and measurable. He also said initially that some of the areas had not changed which I was also disappointed by. Anyway, when the computers came back on line I was getting some medicine in the infusion room and the physician's assistant for the oncologist came to see us, and was able to tell us good news. There were places in just two treatments that had their activity measured as less than half. That made me very happy.

But this is the plan, when we met with the oncologist we decided to do something called chemoembolization. That is the procedure I was hoping not to have to do, except for it is very effective, and super fast acting. Chemo can gain the same results but it may take longer so this will get us to where we want to be faster. This is a procedure which will target the liver. I will have to have this surgery twice because I have issues on both lobes of the liver. I am not excited about this (medicial people will probably think this is cool, but I hate health things, lucky me). The procedure will be threading a catheder up into my arterie and putting intense chemo into the liver, three different kinds, that I don't remember. I do remember one I have heard of and patients call it the red death. Sounds pretty awesome huh? And then they put in some other agent to keep it all stuck in there by blocking blood flows to the liver on that side. So it is not a long procedure 2ish hours. I have to be in the hospital one day as long as I am able to pass all their tests to leave the hospital. I will be sick. It will be like a flu-y thing, and I guess there could be some pain. There is a small risk for liver failure so that is the small worrisome risk, but we all do the things that we need to do. The first procedure is scheduled for April 9th. It is possible that I will be able to get the next procedure in four weeks after as long as the blood tests and healing show I am healthy and ready for round 2. Oncology and the surgeon that is doing this procedure think this procedure is super cool because they can do it a bunch of times. That is sort of cool unless you are the patient, so lets hope two times is the charm in this case. The oncologist is always so super positive, he talks like it will just take care of the issue, and says it is like 85% effective. The homeopathic doctor has said it is not as toxic to the body because chemo is not floating through all of the body systems. So here we go. And ps, the icing on the cake will be more chemo when I am able to take it. There is always more chemo, so at least we know that these drugs are doing it.

We chose the 9th because I want to go home and be with family at Easter. It will be the Friday after Easter we return to the CTCA. Last year at this time we had to stay home at Easter, which dissapointed me, so that we could fly out so I could have a lumpectomy. I am not super cool with Easter/springtime turning into an annual surgery event. I do have to say, I am relieved to get a break from the chemo until I get the surgery and then end up not feeling too awesome, but right now it is nice to feel relief from being a germophob and some side effects.