Some hard numbers….

Hi Rowena:

I was diagnosed in September 09, and the Gemsar/Cisplatin combo has been the first chemo that we’ve tried. The effort is geared towards clearing out the lymph nodes in prep for surgery. While it’s certainly an unusual response, my oncologist said it has happened before, so I’m just gonna go with it.

I have my tumor markers run at the beginning of each cycle, but in my case, the numbers don’t mean much. When I was diagnosed, I had a 7.5 cm tumor in my liver and regional lymph node involvement. My CA 19-9 was 60. It went up to 90 after my first cycle and then downhill to 42 at the beginning of February. I took a 3 week break from chemo and my markers went up a bit during that time, and rose a bit more after my first cycle back on chemo, just like it did right when I started chemo in the fall. My oncologist and nurse feel this is just a small wave similar to what happened in the beginning, so we’re going with the belief that the chemo is still working.

I’m gonna go out and say that CC is such a turd – everyone is different. It’s nutty to think about my CA 19-9 markers being indicative of anything in my body considering I was diagnosed with a big ol tumor and stage III CC and those markers were a whopping 60. Cancer, she’s a sly one; she likes to keep you on your toes and everyone gets treated a bit differently. I refuse to be on anything but high alert until I know for sure this crap is over with….and then who knows, she likes to come back, so I’ll have to still watch out for her in the future.

I believe that what may work for me may not work for you, but that you may find some combo that wouldn’t have worked at all for me and blows this monster out of the water. Radiation isn’t a huge thing for me because we’re trying to nuke my lymph nodes as a priority, but it works for some people. I hope you find quickly what works for you and the fighting spirit kicks in.