Time for a change

The petscan that I had on Friday has shown some progression in the liver and a couple of  lymph nodes. It is a fairly minor progression with none of the 3 areas being over the size of a quarter, but my oncologist has decided that it is time to move on treatment-wise.  She is fairly aggressive with changing quickly to avoid large amounts of growth or things getting out of control.   I am good with this approach, but it is still hard to have a treatment only last for 7-8 months.     The scan also showed some fluid around the liver and around the spleen that she thinks occurred as a side effect of the previous chemo, Gemzar.  Hopefully, changing treatments will help that resolve as well.

I am being switched to a chemo called Halaven.  This chemo is given 2 weeks on / 1 week off with checking labs on the off week.  It can lower counts, but hopefully will not impact them as much as the previous one did.  If they do, it is possible to lower the dose.   While there are a variety of side effects, the biggest one I've been warned about is fatigue.  Stomach issues are possible but not as common as with some others.  Hair may thin, but is unlikely to come out completely.

 The hardest thing right now is just the unknown.  I'd finally gotten to a good place with the previous treatment where I knew how I'd feel when and how to manage all of it.  Now I have to start that process all over again.   Changing chemos in the midst of all this virus craziness adds an extra bit of anxiety since I have no idea what my counts will do, but I"ll just take it a day at a time & makes quarantine myself even more important.  

I'd appreciate prayers that this new treatment will work as well as possible.  I hope you have a good week!

A cancer update & why you shouldn't cook with a cold

Cancer Update - With switching the chemo to every other week infusions, my white blood cells and ANC have stayed higher than before.  My platelets still go low but not so low that we have to skip a treatment day like was happening on the 2 week on/ 1 week off cycle.   I just have to take some bleeding precautions.   This month, I had what is hopefully my last bone building infusion.  I've officially met the 5 year point on those every 6 months.  I will be having a bone density scan over spring break to see where things are, and then the official decision whether to stop or go a little longer will be made when I see my oncologist on 3/31.   Please pray that bone density will be good, and that I can stop those infusions.

My last pet scan was in December; so, it is time to have another one to see where things stand.  I will be having that on 3/27, and getting the results on 3/31 as well.  My tumor markers have gone back and forth a bit the last few months, but my oncologist is considering them generally stable and still in the normal range.  I would greatly appreciate prayers that the pet scan will be stable or show regression.  

I feel pretty good, and am functioning well on this chemo now that we've found the right combination of medicine and time.   In general, I think my life is pretty well put together considering everything, and then there is an afternoon like this one (or really just the last hour or so) that makes me feel like a complete train wreck.   I am staying in today b/c of some cold symptoms, and decided that this afternoon would be a perfect time to brown some ground beef and make some spaghetti w/ meat sauce and taco meat to freeze for lunches or dinners later.  I typically cook in larger quantities and then freeze for later rather than buying frozen meals. I had also hoped to do some sloppy joe meat, but you'll see why that didn't happen.  

So, everything is going well, the beef is almost browned and the spaghetti sauce is ready for me to add the ground beef.  Then I realize that the sloppy joe mix calls for tomato paste which I don't have.  No problem I'll just improvise with some of the spaghetti sauce.  So, I have a little cup with some sauce on it to the side.  I start transferring meat into the sauce and then I hit the skillet causing the handle to hit the cup spilling it down the counter.....as I'm trying to pick it up to minimize the damage, my arm  hit a hot portion of the skillet and sent ground beef flying in the air to the floor.  ( I still don't know how I managed to do that).  With the amount of meat & probably poor substitution sauce  no longer available, I scratched the sloppy joes and cleaned up the counter & floor. The water is now boiling, and I'm trying to add angel hair to get the pasta cooking. I managed to then hit that hot pot with my arm, the box of pasta when flying and angel hair was now all over my floor.   I  wanted to throw the towel in at this point, but I was not going to let this simple meal defeat me.   Found a new box of angel hair and finally got to eat my spaghetti after cleaning the floor for the 2nd time in less than an hour.  

I'm not someone who really enjoys cooking to begin with, and I typically just do pretty easy meals, but even I don't normally make this big of a mess out of them. I think I'm going to blame the cold for all of it.  So, lesson learned - never cook with a cold! Lol!