I had my pet scan this past Monday and got the results of that today. The good news is that the radiation worked. The lime sized liver tumor and the cancerous lymph nodes near the liver that lighted up in April are no longer there or lighting up. The bad news is that the higher dose of chemo did not keep new growth from occurring. There is a new problem area in a different section of the liver and at least 3 retroperitoneal left aortic lymph nodes lighting up. I had received my tumor markers on Tuesday, and they had gone up slightly (after 2 months of going down) which had me worried about something like this.
My oncologist had already spoken to the radiation oncologist that worked with me in April/ May. That dr believes that we can do the SBRT on the new spots, and thankfully, I already had a follow-up appointment scheduled with him for this Monday. Hopefully, we will be able to get going on the SBRT soon.
I have stopped the previous oral chemo, and that has to clear from my system. I will have to wait a week or two after the new radiation is finished, and then I will start a more traditional, iv chemo called gemcitabine. It comes with lowered white blood cells and some traditional chemo side effects, though not as much hair loss as some others, but it is generally well tolerated if needed to be on it for a length of time (which is what we are hoping for).
I'm a bit nervous to go without any treatment even for a short time since the new spots grew on the previous chemo, but taking the new one with the radiation is not possible due to toxicity. A "cancer friend" has compared this to playing "whack-a-mole", and I thought that was a good description. Its a bit of a crazy feeling. I would really appreciate prayers that we are able to get on to the treatment quickly and that it works as well as possible!
