This was Susan’s long chemo day consisting of both topotecan and the 7 hour desensitization dose of cisplatin. As usual all the pre-meds left her pretty spacey. Nonetheless, we were able to grab a bite of Chinese food and do a little shopping at Kroger on the way home: so it wasn’t a bad day as these days go. She’s now safely in her “nest” sleeping off all the cocktails they gave her. Unlike the treatment a month ago, she didn’t dream with her eyes wide open, but was able to actually sleep through most of the day.
We got two pieces of good news today, also. First, the weekly weigh-in showed Susan had gained 3 pounds, an excellent result given the challenge of eating and appetite that had plagued her a month ago. Now she’s starting to worry about gaining too much weight—a really good sign! Even more exciting was the result of last week’s CT scan: “nothing found nowhere.” When the nurse showed me the radiology report I spontaneously shouted, “Praise the Lord.” She replied with “Amen.” Of course we don’t take these reports quite as seriously as we did before given that they missed a lot of tumor the last time. However, coupled with the good tumor marker (down to 20), the weight gain and the higher energy levels Susan has been having lately, we consider this to be excellent news. For all those of you who have prayed for just these results, we give you our thanks even as we thank the Lord for this mercy and for His sustaining grace.
The next few days after big chemo are usually challenging for Susan as the delayed nausea kicks in. We will appreciate your prayers for that also. Thanks!
No nausea. Not even any nausea pills. Very little pain, and that treatable with tylenol. That's how this very good week went with Susan during her one week furlough from chemo. Her comment: "when I feel this good I forget I'm even sick."
In celebration we spent four days on the banks of the mysterious Caddo Lake in East Texas. If you are really bored and have nothing better to do with your time you can read a factionalized account of our adventures there on Pop's Page under the title: "Caddo! Caddo! Caddo!"
Today was Susan's last chemo for two weeks, when she starts the cycle all over again. So far side effects have been minimal (PTL!). Usually it's the next day or two that these start showing up so we will appreciate your prayers. During chemo Susan was seated next to a gentleman who had sort of inverse cancer: his bone marrow had stopped functioning, his white count was too high (the opposite of Susan's problem) and he apparently was making too many red blood cells which occasionally have to be siphoned off (an inverse blood transfusion). He was taking chemo to kill off his oversupply of white cells. He purported to be a born again Christian who the doctors had only given 4 weeks to live a few months ago. He was at peace because in 1992 he had a near death experience in which he was given a "choice" to go to heaven or remain behind. He chose the latter to be with his pre-teen child. We certainly meet some interesting folks during chemo.....
The last week has been a challenging one for Susan after her big chemo on the 25th. For example, last Saturday I found her lying on the sofa with tears streaming down her cheeks. "What's the matter?" I asked. "It hurts," she replied. "How bad?" I said. "Seven on a scale of ten." Ouch! After much discussion she reluctantly took a vicodin, and slowly the pain released its grip on her abdomen. This was the first vicodin she's taken since leaving the hospital almost a month ago. She's concerned about its side effects that brought her there originally.
Even when the pain leaves, the nausea continues to plague her and makes her feel "icky" most of the time. Yesterday, during her short treatment with topotecan, we came across a new anti-nausea medication that goes by the brand name of anzamet. From its associated web site we learned that of all the chemo drugs, cisplatin is at the top of the list (5 categories) in causing nausea. No wonder she's had such a problem during this round of chemo. By contrast, taxol--which she took last round--is only on level two.
Susan took the anzamet after we returned home, and by late yesterday afternoon was feeling good again. This makes the second good day she's had this week (Monday was the first, for some unknown reason). We are hoping that this turns out to be the silver bullet for combating her nausea. The other drug that seems to work is compazine, but this causes "restless leg syndrome" (see for example, www.rls.org). In RLS the sufferer [it's estimated that there are 16 million of these in the US alone] experiences jerking leg movements while trying to fall asleep at night. This tends to make getting a good night's sleep a challenge for both the RLS afflicted person and her/his bedmate. This is yet another example of how drug interactions daisy chain together to sometimes make the treatment worse than the disease. [See the article below on "Stability".]
On the good news front, we were informed during yesterday's chemo visit that Susan's tumor marker had fallen from 26 to 20. We try not to get too excited about low numbers like this, given their somewhat misleading character as observed prior to her last surgery. However, it does seem consistent with the checkup she had on Tuesday with Dr. Munoz. His observation: "your abdomen is smooth and soft with no indication of any recurrent disease. This is a real contrast to how it felt right before surgery." His other comment was a little less encouraging: "After what I did to you, you'll always feel 'different' in your abdomen."