I think I skipped #22 but I'll call this one #25 anyway!!! More Chemo!!!!!

Yet Another Round of Chemo:  I Win a Few More Rounds

After getting in from New York last night, I slept fairly restlessly.  You may recall that before we left San Antonio, I had an MRI of the brain and a CTscan of the lungs and abdomen and liver.  Why the abdomen and liver?  Just to be safe.  Those scans were in the back of my mind each day and night I was in the City.

So, today, I was scheduled for additional chemotherapy (alimpa, carboplatin and avastin™ —the new drug fabricated by Genentech) and a chat with Doc Onc1 about the two scans.  I was, I confess, a bit nervous.  I got to the Start Center for Cancer at 8:30 because they always draw blood, check my urine (not for drugs), weigh me and take my vitals.  They have the results before I’m ready to see the doctor at 10 a.m.  After seeing the doctor, I have my chemococktails and read a book while it drip drip drips into my arms and those drips go off to fight both the good and the bad cells affiliated with blood delivery to cells.  This is a huge, on-going war waged entirely in my body and all over my body [See Bob Steck's Message (not available most places) on Cancer as a War We Fight Within Our Bodies].  The chemo is non-directional and will fight heavy users of blood (e.g. cancerous cells and good cells, too, not vampires) wherever they may be in your body whether the MRI or CTscan can see them or not.  The avastin ™ is more targeted and can actually get into the brain to fight cancer cells there.  Until avastin™, that was not really possible.  I (wish I had Genentech stock—I might have in my TIAA stock fund.

I piss off yet another very nice nurse

Anyway, at 10:20, Anita, Doc Onc1’s nurse comes in and tells me he’s running twenty minutes late because of an oncological emergency at the hospital.  I ask her if she means he’s running forty minutes late and she says no, he said twenty.  I ask, Where is he?  Hiding behind you?"  She says at the hospital.  I ask “Who’s on first?”  She doesn’t understand.  I explain, not the allusion to the old baseball joke, but that since my appointment was at 10 and it is now 10: 20 and he’s 20 minutes late, he should be standing in the door right now.  She sighs and says she means twenty minutes from now.  And I say, oh...he’s forty minutes late.  She leaves.

Doc Onc1 Arrives

Finally, he does make it into the office—at 11:00 a.m.  He cranks up his computer to view the med records from the radiology clinic.  And says, “If you don’t mind, we’ll run two more full chemo treatments.  Then, we’ll start maintenance.”  I ask “What’s wrong? I thought we were starting maintenance after today’s chemo.”  And therein lies a tale.

The tale:  Each time Doc Onc1 or Doc Onc2 (I have not seen the second of the Docs Onc since I had cybersurgery) wants to do something, I disappear for a while.  Prior to the cyberknife sugery and the first chemotherapy treatment, I lose myself and Susan in Europe for a few weeks.  When I return, ZAP!!!!,  I get both evil procedures. But I loved Europe and both procedures were extremely effective.  This time, Doc Onc1 had thought he’d move to maintenance after the chemo I had this morning.  I was supposed to have had it last Tuesday, instead, ZAP!!!, I go to the City and see Broadway plays, the superb Willem deKooning exhibit at MoMA and relive my youth by hanging out at Occupy Wall Street for a while.  So, today, I am told that Doc Onc1 wants to delay shifting to maintenance until after two more full chemo treatments.

I gulp (I hate chemo!!!! And its after-effects) and ask why?  Has the prognosis changed?  He explains that yes, the prognosis has changed a bit.  Seems I have been doing so well on chemo (markers moving from 200+ to 75- to today’s 27) and my lungs sound clear and the cancer there is retreating and that’s also happening in the brain and lymph node and I am tolerating the intolerable so well that he wants to try to reduce all of the cancers until they are almost not detectable at all (I'm out of breath!).  At that point, we might try cyberknifing what’s in the lung or just cutting out what’s left.  At any rate, even if that does not happen, we can move on to maintenance.

Good News Day!!!

So, a good news day again.  Though a nervous day in the making.  I went to work for an hour after today’s chemo (which lasted three hours) and then out to Robert Flynn’s house for his signing of his new "Jade" book.  Had a good time.

Thanks for reading.