What to expect next
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Hi Cindy….the lymph nodes act like sieves in the blood stream by catching cells in our case, the CC cells. This means that your Mom’s cancer has advanced from its primary location and that cancerous cells are floating around. Systemic chemotherapy works by destroying cancer cells and your Mom appears to be responding extremely well to her treatments. Her weight gain including, her overall feeling of well being is fantastic news to share. Congratulations.
Proceeding six consecutive treatments, our physician ordered a scan. When maximum benefit of treatment has been reached other recommendations will be made. This means that as long as the response is positive and your Mom continues to do well then the current treatment will stay in place. Of course, you would want to bring all these questions to the treating physician.
Good luck on the upcoming MRI. My fingers are crossed and all my good wishes are heading your way.
MarionHi Cindy – I don’t know what your doctor will order, but after my husband’s rounds of chemo, his CT scan was scheduled within the next week and the results were available very quickly – I think by the next day. We really did not have a lot of waiting time. He did well on chemo also and felt better when he was on it, however, in his case, his tumors did not shrink and no further chemo was recommended. At that point, he was hoping for a clinical trial but found his protein levels were just too low. Each patient is different and we hold out much hope for your mom. I agree completely with Lainy that attitude plays the biggest part of all. Best wishes are headed your way. Blessings, Susan
Hi Cindy, what a wonderful, caring and loving daughter you are. It is evident just by the way you write about your Mother.
When the ONC will do the MRI, is up to him, hard to tell. If the tumors are shrinking that would be great news and again to continue is up to the ONC.
Yes, we have had family here have tumors shrink enough to have a resection.
And yes, we have had some stage 4 patients who are doing well.
We live with HOPE! The hope that something new will be coming up. IF the news ends up being not as good as you hope for, there are also “trials” your doctor might suggest. Very important to make sure he has treated other CC patients and that he is pretty aggressive with his approach.
If there is no change and no shrinkage again it is up to the ONC but one who is knowledgable with CC would probably keep trying other things as long as Mom is willing.
Cindy it is most important to have a good attitude and to be very strong. Attitude gets you so much further and will be most helpful to your Mom. While we are not doctors and everyone is different, I hope this helps a little. By the way where is Mom being treated? Please keep us posted.Hello Everyone,
I am hoping you all can help me with a few questions. Here is my mom’s story again. She is 65 years old and was diagnosed with CC early in November. It is stage 4 and has spread to the liver and lymph nodes. I don’t know any specifics, such as tumor size. She had a bile duct stent put in soon after diagnosis (she was EXTREMELY jaundiced) and it did it’s job. After about 6 weeks, she was no longer yellow and her billirubin numbers had greatly improved (again, I don’t know what they are, just that the doctors are happy). She started Gemzar/Carboplatin early in December. She goes once every 3 weeks. She is tolerating it very well. After drastic initial weight loss (mostly due to the stress of waiting for the diagnosis) she is steadily gaining weight. Thank you Megace! She feels weak some days, but is learning that the more she moves, the better she feels. Otherwise she says she feels good. After 6 chemo treatments, she will have an MRI. Here are my questions. I know every patient is different, but I am hoping to learn from your experiences.
Her 6th chemo is scheduled for March 24th. About how long after that will they do the MRI?
If the MRI shows that the tumors are actually shrinking, will they continue with more treatments for a while? Is it possible for the tumors to shrink to the point where she could have a resection? I don’t fully understand how the whole lymph node part works. Is it even possible for stage 4 cancers to go into remission?
If the MRI shows more growth or spread, there are other things the doctor could try, right? My mom (who is otherwise healthy) is willing to try anything!
If the MRI shows no shrinkage, but no growth or spread either, do they continue with the same treatment or try something new?
Thank you in advance for your help! If you can answer even one of my questions, I will be extremely grateful!!!
Cindy
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