Stability

Today I had a meeting with my oncology doctor before an anticipated treatment.  I had a CT scan last week in preparation for this meeting.  He went over the results of the scan which I will get to later on in this post. 

A couple weeks ago Leah had a doc appointment with my same doctor.  Since we both have the same doctor he felt free to share some medical information about me at her appointment.  The big news at that appointment was that the current regimen was beginning to kill my plasma.  What you should know is I get 2 forms of chemo every 2 weeks.  One I get during a 4 hour slot at the Cancer Pavilion downtown.  At the end of that they hook me up to a portable pump filled with another set of chemo drugs which runs for 46 hours and then unhooked and repeated 2 weeks later. It is the Chemo that runs during the 4 hours that is killing my plasma and therefore my blood levels aren't returning to normal as quickly as expected.  Due to this fact the doctor told me we would need to likely stop chemo as it had been given previously.  He also suggested we would likely be starting maintenance chemo.  Today the doctor confirmed we should not continue chemo as we have been.  He did also suggest we move to maintenance chemo which would consist of getting the pump hooked up for 46 hours every 2 weeks.   I have an appointment at U of M in 2 weeks so all of us wanted to see what the doctor there has to say about the treatment plan.  My schedule then is to meet with my Doc in Ann Arbor in 2 weeks and the meet with my oncologist and get treatment in 4 weeks.

Now to the scan.  The doctor read through the report with us.  The word he used to describe the report is Stable.  The news was that there are 2 lesions that are cystic and several others that are not.  One decreased in size by roughly 6 mm.  Another may have grown in size by a mm or 2.  Of course this is comparing a CT scan to a previous MRI.  Some of the difference may be due to the inaccuracy of one scan vs the other.  My doctor wants to repeat a scan in 8 weeks and is hoping for 2 scans to be exactly the same.  Until he sees me in 4 weeks he suggested I take a break from chemo and take that time to "recover" and maintain a "normal" life for that time.

---Kent