Surprises

Sometimes surprises can be a good thing, sometimes they can be a bad thing, and sometimes they're...well...just unexpected things that don't really sway a person one way or the other.

First surprise came last evening when I was much more aware of my surroundings than I thought I would be while they implanted the port. I was numbed up well enough, but I knew exactly what was going on the whole time. I was suprised to be so wide awake. It was a great bunch of nurses who did their very best to keep me laughing though. The doctor himself had a great bedside manner and spoke to me a couple times during the procedure. It was the assistant, however, who gave me my next surprise. Words you don't want to hear while lying vulnerable on a table: "I've never seen it do that before!" EXCUSE ME?! Turns out the porta-cath had turned kind of upside down like. The doctor had seen this before and wasn't at all thrown by it. There was not much pain involved, some discomfort now but nothing unbearable and it will pass pretty quickly. It has, after all, only been about 24 hours.

The next surprise came today during my appointment with Dr Kumar. We made some changes to my treatment plan. Dr K met with what is called the "Tumor Board" which is a group of all the local oncologists. They get together once or twice a month and discuss cases and get input from one another. This input, along with advice from Dr Vogel (in Florida), has led to a new course of action. Biggest surprise is that we did not start the Taxol today. We are, instead, going to continue with the Xeloda for another couple of rounds. The feeling is that with only two rounds of the Xeloda in my system, we haven't really given it any time to work. In terms of "quality of life" it is a better chemo for me to be on than the Taxol. Neither one will increase longevity of life over the other so the idea is to keep me more comfortable longer, if we can. The dosage has changed on the Xeloda and I'll take only four pills a day now for just one week, take a week off, then be on it again for a week, etc. We'll see how my system handles that. If we see after another two or three rounds that my tumor marker numbers are not coming down, then we can always switch to the Taxol at that time.

We did start the Avastin today. This is a drug that will, basically, cut off the blood supply to the tumors. One side effect can be increased blood pressure so, of course, when Brenda came to check my blood pressure and it had gone down, we all shook our heads and laughed. Only me!! She already thinks I'm an odd case. lol

In terms of the liver biopsy, we have decided to wait a little bit with that and see how this other treatment goes as well. There is only a very tiny chance that my cancer has changed in type wherein I would then be a candidate for a drug called Herceptin. When we did a "double check" with the bone biopsy in 2004 the cancer had not changed, so it's unlikely it has changed now. The surprise that came with this one was that another option is to do a laproscopic procedure wherein they would look at the entire abdomen and visually check to see if there are signs of tumor anywhere else around my digestive system that might explain the nausea/heaving. They would then just do the liver biopsy at that time.

Let's see...what else? Ah yes; no more Procrit shots. They're giving me something else for anemia now that can go in my port and I only need it every two weeks instead of every week. Surprise! One more thing for which there will no longer be a needle poke required.

So now, barring any unforeseen changes, I won't have to go back to the clinic for another two weeks! Now THAT's a surprise!

I don't know about you, but all of this information has worn me out, so I'm going to stop here for now. I feel mostly ok. Getting through the port procedure last evening was a huge stress reliever. I was not looking forward to that one at all. And today seemed to turn out better than expected as well.

And when I woke up from my nap this afternoon --- surprise!---there were some fresh flowers that had been delivered!! Thanks Oregon!

May all of you have stress-free, happy, healthy weekends!