Today I lugged a heavy bag into Dana Farber. It was filled with magazines to read, puzzle books the Bunco girls gave me, my iPad, paper (no pen, I had to mooch that off Kelly). I brought this ridiculous amount of stuff because last time we had to wait 2.5 hours to see the first doctor, and ended up spending the entire day there with a lot of waiting. Today we were in an out from all my appointments in a total of 2.5 hours.
My PET scan showed fairly stable disease, which Dr. S and Alex had discussed with me earlier in the week. They also discussed their "tentatively definite" plan, which was to stop treating the cancer in my liver and take time out to treat (and cure) the cervical cancer with radiation and low-dose chemo. The reason is the next most likely treatments for my liver are targeted for my liver only, and no one wants the cervical to advance, so this plan would take the cervical component out of the equation since it is highly treatable with radiation.
So...first up was Dr. B. I must confess, if today was the first time I met her, I would have raved about her. She was engaged, clear, and took ample time with me. She signed off on the plan immediately, but did ask for another cervical biopsy to be performed (yeah...) to try to confirm that the two cancers are in fact two cancers. I also need to get a mammogram (double yeah...) because of a bright spot on my PET.
Next we went to see Dr. Chan. I was hoping to hear what she wanted to do to treat my liver in the fall once the cervical was taken care of. Unfortunately I did not get my answer. I will get an MRI towards the end of my radiation treatments to see what happens to my liver tumors without treatment, and then she will make a decision. What I hope, hope, hope for is that the MRI will show stable disease once again.
I am on the schedule for Tuesday to start radiation, and they are working to get me into chemotherapy too. I am most pleased to not have to wait to start treatment.
The main side effect of radiation is the increased fatigue. I will have 6 weeks of external beam radiation. Week 6 falls the same week as my 1 mile open water swim. Think they will notice if I wear fins (that might not be legal) or hold on to someone's ankles (also not legal...)?
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6 comments:
I'm happy with this plan and happy to see Dr. B redeemed herself a bit! Good news to start the weekend with!!! Enjoy all your babes ;)
Courtney
So glad that this one went better and Dr B is not so bad!
I am glad that you have a plan, now let's make this plan work!
Feeling much more positive about this farber visit...I was ready to say dump,dump dump...well I did didn't I...mmm....so glad suzanne. Forward steps are the best. So here you go...tuesday will be the start of hopefully a healthier life.Lets move out! You go girl!
Glad you have almost a plan.
You can hold my ankles at Betsy Owens.
This post makes me happy. =)
About damn time you had good news about a doctor visit! Glad Dr. B. redeemed herself, and here's to the plan working as planned! XOXO
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