OK, I have been pretty silent this February when it comes to blogging So, as the month expires, I thought I would post an update I had two rounds of treatment this month plus my regular bi-monthly CT scan. The treatments themselves were pretty routine.
I’ve also been trying to focus on a number of things I either need to or would like to get done sooner rather than later. But somehow in all of this I lost my voice for blogging. I did spend a fair bit of time reading the transcripts from the World Economic Forum, which were great. Perhaps I will blog later on that. I was also probably one of the 14 people in America who watched the entire 7 hours of the President’s Healthcare summit. I thought there was a lot of interesting (although admittedly wonkish) discussion but the media seemed to be looking for fireworks I wish some responsible media outlet would actually review the points and reasoning rather than just looking for the “killer” sound bite.
But back to reality. On my health front, I have had some bad news. My recent scan has shown “significant” growth in my cancer. Significant is a proportional designation – meaning the percentage of tumor size. Since my tumors are all very small, the overall amount of cancer isn’t problematic yet. In fact, I believe that they have not yet attained the size they started at before the 50% reduction from my early chemo days. But, most importantly, the results mean that my current drugs (5FU and AMG655) aren’t working anymore. This is the way it works with colon cancer (and perhaps other cancers as well) – a drug works for a while and kills everything that it can. But if it doesn’t kill it all, the remainder is immune to that drug. So it does no good to keep taking it.
I will need to move to a new line of defense. I don’t know what that is yet. My onc wanted to consult with the radiologist before making a recommendation on next steps. So, I will see him on Tuesday the 8th to come up with a new gameplan. I am disappointed that my first line, which seemed to be going so well, has now failed after just 15 months. Dr S said that’s about the median for its usefulness. But I knew from the beginning that this is a defensive war where each treatment protocol will work for only so long and then you need to fallback to something else to buy more time and so on. I’m also a bit disappointed because I have been feeling pretty good and my weight is up. I have been weight training nearly everyday this year to try to improve my strength and muscle mass for the fight ahead. Hopefully the workouts will help shore up my second line, whatever that turns out to be. I’ll let you know when I know.
Thanks again to you all for your continued support. It means a lot to me and my family. BB
I’ve also been trying to focus on a number of things I either need to or would like to get done sooner rather than later. But somehow in all of this I lost my voice for blogging. I did spend a fair bit of time reading the transcripts from the World Economic Forum, which were great. Perhaps I will blog later on that. I was also probably one of the 14 people in America who watched the entire 7 hours of the President’s Healthcare summit. I thought there was a lot of interesting (although admittedly wonkish) discussion but the media seemed to be looking for fireworks I wish some responsible media outlet would actually review the points and reasoning rather than just looking for the “killer” sound bite.
But back to reality. On my health front, I have had some bad news. My recent scan has shown “significant” growth in my cancer. Significant is a proportional designation – meaning the percentage of tumor size. Since my tumors are all very small, the overall amount of cancer isn’t problematic yet. In fact, I believe that they have not yet attained the size they started at before the 50% reduction from my early chemo days. But, most importantly, the results mean that my current drugs (5FU and AMG655) aren’t working anymore. This is the way it works with colon cancer (and perhaps other cancers as well) – a drug works for a while and kills everything that it can. But if it doesn’t kill it all, the remainder is immune to that drug. So it does no good to keep taking it.
I will need to move to a new line of defense. I don’t know what that is yet. My onc wanted to consult with the radiologist before making a recommendation on next steps. So, I will see him on Tuesday the 8th to come up with a new gameplan. I am disappointed that my first line, which seemed to be going so well, has now failed after just 15 months. Dr S said that’s about the median for its usefulness. But I knew from the beginning that this is a defensive war where each treatment protocol will work for only so long and then you need to fallback to something else to buy more time and so on. I’m also a bit disappointed because I have been feeling pretty good and my weight is up. I have been weight training nearly everyday this year to try to improve my strength and muscle mass for the fight ahead. Hopefully the workouts will help shore up my second line, whatever that turns out to be. I’ll let you know when I know.
Thanks again to you all for your continued support. It means a lot to me and my family. BB
