Update and Upcoming Stuff

I just wanted to post a quick update on what is going on currently and what is coming up.  I spent the weekend in bed and am still on a liquid/soft food diet.  I stayed on pain meds and ibuprofen all weekend.

Today I'm back to work, so no pain meds.  We've had a lot of calls this morning because of people being out and my throat is getting sore from talking.  According to what I've read and been told, the radiation is still in effect in my body for 2 weeks after the final treatment (Friday) and it takes 4-6 weeks for the damage to heal completely.  So I'm probably looking at a few more weeks of this.

Third Time's A Charm, Right?

Today I completed another session of radiation.  This makes my third time to do 10 days in the past 5 years. Third time's a charm, right? I hope it is, because I'm seriously beginning to wonder if I'm approaching the lifetime maximum radiation exposure. Considering all the CT Scans I've had in the past few months + this radiation session and the two other ones I had previously, I would not be surprised.

I was discharged again with a certificate and a t-shirt.  But when you become a radiation vet, they know you already have the t-shirt, so they offered to give me another t-shirt for a family member or friend.  Jesse was the lucky recipient of my radiation t-shirt.  Congratulations, Jesse!

I'm seriously glad I'm done with the treatments.  The nurse said it will continue to be active for the next two weeks.  This means I won't be eating anything easily until my body kicks in and gets the cells repaired in my throat.  Today I was so hungry, that I bought a hamburger and picked the patty apart into tiny pieces.  It takes forever to eat it that way, but it definitely made me feel better!

Quick Update

Today has been rather hectic between working and doctor's visits, radiation, and cancer group tonight, so I'm going to keep it brief tonight because I haven't had time to do any research to really say much more anyhow.

I went in to see my local oncologist expecting to find out about, and sign off on the forms, for the Paloma-3 trial, but when I got there they had me scheduled with a PA I had never met before and he had no idea why I was even there.  After I gave yet another doctor a summary of why I was there and what I was expecting, he excused himself and went and called my oncologist on the phone.  He came back with a rather vague idea of what was going on and really couldn't answer any of my questions.

What it comes down to, is that I failed to qualify for the Paloma 3 trial because it is ineffective on the type of tumors I have.  That's about all I got out of him regarding that.  I plan to ask more questions next week when I see the oncologist.

I informed him I have been off treatment since the beginning of June and requested to know what was being recommended as the next course of treatment.  I was told Abraxane.  Abraxane is an IV chemo drug.  It is similar to Taxol which I had at the very beginning of all of this in 2009.  It was the first one I did for 12 weeks once a week and tolerated fairly well.  If you'd like a refresher on how that went, here's a link to a search that will show all the articles mentioning taxol:  Click here for links to previous Taxol related blog posts.

This time, I'd be doing it once a week for 3 weeks and taking 1 week off and repeating as long as it appeared to be effective.  It's a 2 hour process.  I'm seriously dreading it and really want to find out what made her choose this treatment over others like Afinitor which is an m-tor inhibitor that MD Anderson had suggested.  I'll know more next week when I get to talk to her.

Until then, I'll be reading up on it and looking to see what all options I have.  Here's the rough schedule they gave me today:

7/10 - Last day of radiation(8 down, 2 to go!)
7/11 or 7/14 - CT Scan
7/16 - Oncologist visit

Sore Throat and Liquid/Soft Diet

When I talked to my radiation oncologist before I started this she pretty much guaranteed me a sore throat due to the anatomical proximity of the cervical spine and the throat.  There is just no way to avoid hitting it and still radiate the majority of my c-spine.  She said if it got bad and I couldn't eat much to let them know and they had some medication I could take.

1 down, 9 to go

Radiation day 1 - set up and marking + treatment of cervical spine C2-C7 and  thoracic spine T1-T5.  45 minutes of pure hell!  I forgot how claustrophobic it makes you feel to be bolted down to a table with a plastic mask and have your hands and feet hog tied together to pull your shoulders out of the radiation zone.  Worst is over though.  Going forward, it will just be the treatment.

Spine Radiation

I got sentenced to 10 more radiation treatments to knock back this spine metastasis.  They will be using the same hog tied and masked process they used last time.  Fun, fun... For a refresher on what the process is, click on the link to read more and it will take you to the blog article from November.

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