Round 1 Abraxane and Neupogen shots completed

Round 1 of the Abraxane is complete.  The combination of Anakinra (the trial drug which also effects the immune system) and the Abraxane took a major toll on my immune system.  I was forced to take three days of Neupogen shots to force my bones to make more white blood cells.  It was rough, but I made it through.

Chemo #3 Completed

It's 3:44 am Tuesday morning and I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd post about today's treatment.  I'm still on the trial and giving myself shots every day.  I'm starting to get local allergic reactions every time I do it now.  They say it's OK to continue and not a big deal.  They advised me to use some benedryl creme if it bothered me.

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

Doctor's Visit Update

Totally exhausted, but so much to do.  I had to take a quick break and update everyone on today's visit.  The disease is now extensive in the bones of my spine, but not enough to cause it to compress.  The bad part is that the disease is spreading into the soft tissue areas around my spinal cord that protect the spinal cord and there is a risk for a nerve to be affected if nothing is done.  My local oncologist is recommending radiation to that area.  I'm all for that and do not have any dates or amount of times I have to go in yet.  I will find that out at the initial consult with the radiation oncologist (using the same one as I did in the past).

As far as the treatment plan goes, I spoke with my oncologist and she said there was a trial that would fit me nicely and not burn another one of our possible standard care drugs.  It's in a second phase 3 which is way late in the game and working well for people who are unsuccessful on endocrine therapy (which is me).  She is going to see about getting me into this one as soon as the radiation is complete.

In the meantime, I'm rather exhausted and trying to get things cleaned up around here so that some people can come out and look at possibly fixing some of the things that never got finished.  My mom has found some volunteers to help out.  Between my appointments, work, Katie's schedule, and Jesse working all his days off to make up for days he takes off without pay (his new manager is making him take his PTO when he goes with me instead of letting him work in the waiting room)....  we have a thousand unfinished projects in this house still.  So I have to get this place straightened up so it can be toured by a bunch of strangers.  I'm worn out and still have 4 rooms to go!  So back to it.