Back from Vacation

As you can see in these pictures, we had a great time on our family vacation to Florida! Spent lots of time swimming and collecting sea shells. I took a picture of Sam's foot standing on the beach where there are so many shells in some spots that you can't even see sand. Also, there's a picture of the sunrise viewed from our balcony which overlooked the resort's beach and pool area.

Tropical storm Fay did make us evacuate Sanibel island on Monday night (stayed in a Ft Myers hotel on higher ground), but we were right back on the beach the next day after the storm made landfall to the South and had passed on its way up to the Florida panhandle. Overall, we had great weather except for a few rain showers and the stormy day.

Sarah is feeling fairly well -- she started another 2 week Xeloda cycle on Friday and hasn't had any significant nausea or fatigue so far. The main side effect is that the skin on her feet is continuously peeling off (like after a very bad sunburn) and it makes them tender and uncomfortable to walk on. We're in a relatively good place right now. We're continuing to monitor tumor markers and Sarah will get another set of MRIs (brain and liver) near the end of Sept. If those are clear then we hope she can take a break from chemo -- what a relief that will be after this marathon of over 1.5 yrs of nearly continuous chemo!

Although we can't ignore that progression almost certainly lies somewhere in the future, we are very thankful that Sarah's many treatments have bought us precious time - time for cancer research to continue advancing towards a cure, and time for us to spend together. As always, we are focusing on living life to its fullest today and only worrying about the future when we need to in order to make the best decisions about what to do next. Let's pray for a looooong "quiet" period for Sarah!

More good news!

Today I was in for treatment, and my oncologist handed me a copy of my blood work from last week .... My tumor markers have dropped down into the normal range!! CA 27.29, which topped out at 172.6 at the beginning of June, has dropped down to 14.9. Normal range for CA 27.29 is 0 - 38.6. Just two weeks prior, it was 53.9, so it has taken quite a nose dive! This correlates with the clean PET scan ... the numbers were just lagging behind a little. It's starting to sink in that, for the time being at least, I am NED (No Evidence of Disease). Wow!

I also tried to get a better understanding of the chemo plan from my doctor, and when I asked about taking a break to save the chemo for future use, he agreed that if the MRI next month looks good, I could take some time off of chemo and just continue on Herceptin (targeted therapy ... no side effects like chemo), Zolodex (ovarian suppression ... tolerable side effects) and Zometa (bone strengthener ... also no side effects for me). So 21 months after I got on this mets roller coaster, I might get to step off for at least a little while and take a breather. I *still* can't quite believe it!

The docs have weighed in

I talked to both my oncologist and my interventional radiologist this week about the PET scan results. The interventional radiologist called it a "complete response" to the treatment. He said the reason the report says that I had a resection is because they didn't see anything in the area where there was uptake in the last PET scan, so they assumed I must have had it cut out (they obviously didn't read the form I filled out detailing all my previous surgeries and the SIR Spheres procedure!). He wants me to have a follow-up MRI in another two months, and it sounded like after that I'd only need to see him if I needed another SIR Spheres treatment!

My oncologist called the PET results a 'pleasant surprise', but he is not planning on changing my treatment at all. I have finally recovered from the horrible Xeloda side effects, so I got to start my next round of Xeloda today. We have reduced the dose again (it's now half of the dose I started on originally) and we're hoping that I will be able to tolerate this lower dose. I was really disappointed to hear that I will continue on with chemo indefinitely, so much so that I didn't ask the right questions to understand *why* nothing will change despite a clean PET. I plan on asking the right questions on Monday so that I can understand the reasons. Perhaps then I will feel more like celebrating ...