ajcarman72
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This site has provided a wealth of valuable information to me and I am eternally grateful it is here.
Funny, I just posted that I wanted to get my mom active here… and then she e-mailed saying that she has registered!
That is amazing tumor shrinkage! Very good.
We haven’t been at this long enough with my mom to know if going off chemo is a normal thing. Best of luck on her path forward!
I am thinking about you and wishing you the best Kris. You have every right to be angry and upset. Don’t give up!
Thanks all for the well wishes. I have been meaning to look up info about the Cyber Knife. I will do that, thanks Lainy.
I started the other day reading about the Gemzar and oxaliplatin combination, but had to run. My goal is to read more here today about that because my mom did ask if I had looked here and what I had found.
I was happy to hear that her oncologist had already spoken with the Mayo doctor while she was still there and before they even came back he had her on the schedule for visit today to re-evaluate her path forward. I am just very pleased that after going through a few doctors in Colorado that she has one who she likes and who is aggressive with treatments and responsive to her inquiries.
My mom and stepdad want to visit for Thanksgiving and I hope that can happen. I would really love to have them here, but it also makes me nervous for her with my two little walking petri dishes who will want to love her and hang all over her and not to mention her having to make the flight over the holiday. We will work the details on that, but are more than willing to visit them instead if need be to avoid the crowds.
Glad to see someone else on this regimine and that it is working for you! My mom will start this likely next week after she returns from her Mayo visit. Sorry to hear about the side effects – it has me a bit worried as my mom already struggles with anemia and stomach distress. Ugh.
Good luck in continued success with this treatment!
Thanks all for the well wishes. I just phoned my mom as today was her visit with Dr. Alberts at the Mayo Clinic. It isn’t the good news we were hoping to hear. Unfortunately she now has more spots in just the few short weeks since she had her good CT scan.
We were hoping she would be a candidate for transplant since they are doing limited transplants at the Mayo for cc and she has no mets at this point, but that is not going to be the case given the number and distribution of spots on the scans and they do not expect her to be able to become a transplant candidate.
They are having difficulties analyzing the tissue blocks and are believing that she may actually have two types of cancer. She was initially diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma back in January. The diagnosis was changed in August or September to cc when they biopsied the recurrence – after sending the tissue blocks to Denver, Pennsylvania and then the Mayo. The Mayo finally called it cc after the others were inconclusive. The thought is that she may be battling both cancers. If this is the case she will likely also not be a candidate for clinical trials.
The new recommendation is to switch her from gemcitibine (yep, same thing as Gemzar) alone to Gemzar and Oxaliplatin when she returns home. Then explore the option of radiation or microspheres if they can get some shrinkage in the existing tumors.
I just thought I would update on my mom’s CT scan last Thursday. She went in for her Gemzar treatment on Friday and saw the oncologist before that. She had her first ever “good” scan! I was so happy to hear this. No new spots and some shrinkage in the existing spots. This has been a huge mood lifter for her this past week and I hope this gives her good momentum going into her trip to the Mayo in a week and a half.
Welcome Mary’s Son. I am reasonably new here and still learning the ins and outs of this cancer for my mom as well.
My mom is similar – cholangiocarcinoma with multiple spots on the liver. My mom finished up her first round of Gemcitibine for 4 weeks last week and had her first “good” CT scan since she was diagnosed in January of the past year last week. “Good” for her was no new spots and slight reduction in size for the existing spots. Given this “good” scan and the fact that she is tolerating Gemcitibine quite well, they opted for her not to take a break and to continue the weekly regimine. The first few weeks the chemo made her sick the two days after her treatment, then she felt great for the rest of week. The last two weeks have just been more nausea and not feeling great for those first two days, followed by feeling great after that. Her WBCs have also stayed in a good range.
Best of luck to your mom!
I love the name! Great attitude. (My husband’s name is Hans as well – I paused there for a minute when I read your husband’s name!)
Sock it to Leroy!
Thanks all for the thoughts. Also thanks Marion for the name at Vanderbilt, I really appreciate that!
My mom just got out of her 4th session of Gemzar a little bit ago. She has a CT scan scheduled for next week as she is feeling uneasy since this past week she has not felt as good – not rebounded well after the chemo like she did the first few weeks. Thankfully she has a super doctor who jumps on looking into why this may be.
She goes to the Mayo on Oct 20th. In one instance I can’t wait for that date to arrive and in another it is a scary date that we fear may change things for her. Roller coaster emotions.
Congratulations Sue on the good news!
I am new to the board, could you either direct me to posts describing your treatment or give me a brief summary?
My mom is newly on Gemzar (2nd treatment last Friday) and she is tolerating it well. I just got off the phone with her and she had been out walking with her friends, worked some and was baking banana bread before sitting down for her afternoon nap.
She has her treatments on Friday. Saturday she feels sluggish and Sunday she feels awful. Monday she is like a new person and that lasts through Friday night for her.
My mom is 56 and for her, the chemo is worth it so far. We are still relatively new to all this as well.
Good luck to your father!
Lalupes – blogging is so very easy. I use blogger.com or blogspot.com. It walks you through the setup and it can’t be easier! There are other spots – livejournal.com and typepad.com that are probably just as easy. I started with blogger and have stuck with that though.
My mom has told me that through all of this her highlight is going to my blog to read about what is going on here and with the kids. I went through awhile where I was having a hard time blogging because I couldn’t get past her diagnosis. Then she told me she needed me to blog for her escape – and it has forced me to look past the bad things going on, to remember the good and to document that. I also blog for my local newspaper, but I have had to take a break from that because my heart isn’t into blogging for my community right now.
I have thought about how to blog on our site about my mom’s diagnosis and I have yet to go there. I keep meaning to open up the Blogs folder here and see how others have tackled it.
Good luck!
