Quick Update

I had my 2 weeks post-treatment blood draw on Wednesday, and my liver function tests came back normal! So I am cleared to start chemo again on Monday. This new chemo will be an oral chemo called Xeloda. I'll have to take 6 pills a day (3 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon), and I will be on a two weeks on, one week off schedule. Side effects are hand/foot syndrome and stomach issues, but we will reduce the dose if I have any problems. I will still go in every three weeks for my Herceptin infusion and every four weeks for the Zometa infusion (bone strengthener) and Zolodex implant (ovarian suppression). I've heard of many people who have had success with Xeloda, and my doctor is very optimistic that the SIR Spheres will effectively reduce the size of the liver mets. So we are hopeful that the August PET scan will bring us good news. At the end of June, I will get another brain MRI, which I hope will show a stable pituitary tumor. I haven't had any headaches or vision problems, and with all the hoopla surrounding the SIR Spheres treatment and insurance issues, I had almost forgotten about it!

Alan leaves in the morning for a week-long trip to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I'm sure he'll have some pictures to post when he gets back. For now, I'll post a couple of pictures of the four of us at the Memorial Day parade on Monday (you can see my hair has finally filled in, though it is grayer than before!):

15 May - Back from SIR sphere treatment

Everything went great yesterday with Sarah's SIR sphere treatment. We got to the University of Illinois at Chicago hospital at 6am and Sarah was done and back in the recovery room by 11am. She had pretty bad nausea afterwards but that is likely due to the anesthesia - the nausea has mostly subsided now that she's back home. There doesn't seem to be any lasting pain at this point -- just some pain when they initially delivered the treatment to her liver. We ended up leaving the hospital at around 9pm. While we were out, Sam made Sarah a little wood sign which you can see in the pic above -- "I love my Mom." It was very sweet!
Sarah is taking it easy today to make sure her stomach gets back to normal, plus she needs to go easy on her right leg where the incision for the angio catheter is. Otherwise, she's doing well. Now we need to pray that the treatment is effective. She'll get a blood test in 2 weeks to verify her liver is functioning fine and then we hope to get her back on Herceptin and chemo so the rest of her body is "covered." We have to wait 3 months to do a follow-up PET scan on her liver to see how effective this SIR sphere treatment was in killing off her large liver tumor (they said it was pretty much taking up all of her liver's left lobe now) - the doc said doing a test earlier could be inconclusive.

9 May Update - SIR next Wednesday

Sarah and I celebrated our 13 yr anniversary on 6 May! We had a nice romantic dinner at a great local French restaurant and this is a picture of one of our dessert plates. The waiter had written "Happy Anniversary" in chocolate on the plate!

It was also a great anniversary gift that Sarah was approved for the SIR sphere treatment. We went in yesterday to have her prelim. angiogram, CAT scan and test run completed. Everything went fine and we were on our way back home by 3pm. The actual SIR sphere treatment will be done next Wednesday. The doctor told us that Sarah could have some pain and nausea after the treatment since her tumor now takes up a fairly large part of the left lobe of her liver, but there's is still a good chance that she will be able to come home on the same day of the treatment. We're not going to push it -- will have to see how it goes.

We are both so relieved to finally be moving forward again and getting back in the fight. It was a frustrating and helpless feeling to be in a forced chemo treatment break as we waited for this SIR treatment to be approved. The goal is to get this done and quickly get back on chemo and Herceptin (have to take a 2 week Herceptin break as well after SIR treatment).

Finally approved - getting started tomorrow!

Alan talked to his contact at the insurance company late yesterday and was told that I had been approved for the SIR Spheres procedure! We need to have this in writing, though, before we can get started with anything, and we waited ALL DAY today to get the letter in hand. I had talked to the nurse coordinator at the hospital earlier in the day, and she said that I could come in tomorrow for the angiogram if we faxed her a copy of the letter before she went home at 4pm. The letter, of course, didn't come through until after 5pm. So I called and left her a voice mail, figuring we'd have to put it off another day. She called me back at 9:30 tonight, and we are on for tomorrow! I have to be there at 6am to check in. They will do some blood work and a CT scan before the angiogram, which will take 2 1/2 to 3 hrs. I should be home sometime in the afternoon or evening tomorrow. Wow, after all the waiting, things are moving fast! Assuming all goes well with the angiogram tomorrow, I should be able to get the SIR Spheres next week. I am so glad to finally get started, and I'm very thankful that my in-laws stuck it out with us so that we can get started on such short notice. After a thoroughly frustrating day (including me hitting a pothole and needing to get new tires for the van), I can breathe a big sigh of relief. Whew!

And we wait ...

We submitted the appeal to our insurance company last Wednesday afternoon. Despite the fact that their procedure for appeal states that they will make a decision within 72 hours of receiving a request, we *still* have not received an answer. When Alan called on Friday to speak to someone about the case, the appeal had just been scanned in and entered into their system, and the person he spoke to seemed to have no knowledge of the 72 hour turnaround time! We think it may have gone before the medical appeals board yesterday, so maybe we'll hear something today or tomorrow. It's so incredibly frustrating! My in-laws arrived three weeks ago to help out, and I still don't know if or when this treatment will happen. If it gets denied again, we have the option to file a second level appeal. I hope it doesn't come to that because who knows how long that will take!

On a brighter note, today is our 13th anniversary! It's hard to believe it's been 13 years since we got married and almost 18 years since we started dating - that's nearly half of my life! We have experienced so much and made a lot of memories over those 18 years. Tonight we plan to celebrate quietly at a nice French restaurant and look forward to our 14th year together. Happy Anniversary to us!