hamptonsarasota
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Rachel,
45 is too young to give up! I concur with Lainy to post in the introduction section, it will open up the floor to many more comments. Lainy also had some good questions regarding tumor size, metastasis, and location that would help others provide additional input for you. We wish you the best for your son and get that second opinion for sure.Eli,
It was at 0.9 about 3-4 weeks ago, and said if it was lower than that they would have to do something about it but the number rose each successive week. I’ll see how the bloodwork does this Friday and ask a few more questions…Very good day today, bunch of house cleaning with the whole family, gym for an hour with my son and he did his fencing while I hit the sauna/steam room after the workout. Cleaned up my father-in-law’s grill (burners were pretty gunked up, have new guts ordered to install on Monday if they arrive so we ‘prepped’ today) and then have relaxed the rest of the night. Mitzvah Day tomorrow instead of Hebrew school for my daughter, so the whole family will go to donate some time to a worthy cause (not sure what we do yet, we will find out when we get there!) and tomorrow night is Daddy Daughter dance at one of Sydney’s friend’s synagogue so we get to dress up and have some fun!
And, they really can’t aim it at the location where the tumor ‘was’ and hit my liver at the same time it grew back in the other direction…. The tumor was at the bile duct branch just inside the liver, my whole right lobe was removed, half the left, so where the tumor ‘was’ is just small intestines now. My liver is totally on the left side of my body and not even close to the shape of a normal liver either! I’ll definitely have questions to ask, that’s for sure!
It was, I was just wondering if anyone else had similar experiences with the radiation element. I appreciated your response too, it was helpful and educational too!
Sue,
Looks like you started Gem/Cis in July last year. You also mentioned that you are still on it as of 2 weeks ago… How long are they saying that you should continue the adjuvant therapy? One other question, did you have a tumor in the liver itself or was it located elsewhere?My reason for asking, I had resection of liver/all bile ducts removed, gall bladder removed, clean margins, no lymph node involvement, and the tumor was 1cmx0.7cmx0.5cm located in the bile duct only right at the branch just inside the liver. I have had 2 treatments of Gemzar alone and the last 2 treatments were Gem/Cis but we haven’t really discussed time frame. I’m also told radiation with oral Xeloda after the chemo, but what are they going to be shooting it at? Everything was removed and the liver didn’t have involvement so I’m a bit curious about that as well.
Any info would be helpful. Thanks!
Well, here I am wired again. Gotta love the steroids… Here are the bloodwork numbers:
WBC 3.4 (4.2 last week)
Hgb 13.4 (13.5)
HCT 41.2 (41.7)
Plat 308 (257)
ANC 1.6 (2.2)I thought chemo was supposed to lower the platelets?? No nausea (thanks Emend), and all week I didn’t have to take a Zofran at all! 5 hour day, 8 trips to the potty, and got home to do about 3 hours of work. Then cooked three very nice 16oz rib steaks on the grille with sweet potatoes and a 100% organic salad.
Gave the wife a girls night out with friends in the neighborhood (yes, that meant I did all of the dishes and cleaned up the whole kitchen, but hey, steroid wired, might as well!) and she still isn’t home yet so hope she is having a good time. Hope everyone has a great weekend!! Hey, just heard the garage door open, gotta run!!
Congratulations! Positive start, hope they get it scheduled as soon as possible to get the ball rolling.
chezWright,
Fantastic news! I’m also one who had clean margins, but I am doing the adjuvant chemo as a ‘precaution’. Never know what may happen, I chose myself to do the chemo route. And I can say AMEN to the overanalyzing of each and every tweak in the abdomen, I do that every time I feel something different. My current rationalization is that I’m weightlifting again, so I’m stressing the abdomen ‘muscles’ that were cut up pretty good during the surgery so that’s the cause of the ‘twinges’. No real pain though but it is annoying that you have that ‘what was that’ feeling every time you notice something different. My wife tells me I’m crazy, maybe I am!!Dose 2 of Gem/Cis tomorrow. Another 5 hour session with 10 trips to the bathroom, joy joy!! I have a prescription for Zofran and haven’t had to use any at this point. The Emend seems to do the trick for the first 3 days and afterwards I haven’t been feeling anything out of the ordinary. I was a bit tired on Tuesday night (maybe from the gym on Mon/Tue evenings) so I went to sleep at 9:30 and didn’t wake up until 8am, what a great night sleep! Hoping I won’t be as wired tomorrow night after the treatment, those steroids jack you up something fierce!! Hope all is well with everyone else…
Boy oh boy, it seems that I’ve gotten a lot of people to email Dr. Javle. Hope he isn’t mad at me!! He does reply almost immediately, and I’m glad to hear that he continues to do that. My email was out of the blue to him, and since the initian email he has responded when I’ve sent him brief updates on my situation as well. Gem/Cis, as everyone has said previously, is a typical ‘standard of care’ for CC. I’m going for my 2nd dose of it tomorrow. I went to Sloan Kettering and the oncologists there only recommended Gemzar. My email to Dr. Javle which I forwarded to my local oncologist who in turn talked with Sloan’s oncologist resulted in me having 2 treatments of Gemzar only, one week off, and now it will be Gem/Cis for the forseeable future. Positive in my case, this is adjuvant only, all clean margins!! Wish you luck, hope everyone on your doctor’s side figure out what the best course of treatment will be…
My doctor isn’t at MD, I have 2 projects for work ongoing at Johnson Space Center, so on my off week of chemo I try to get out there if I can. Last week I could with no problems! Planning on the 20th because we have 2 major components happening on one project so I wanted to try to be there. I have conversed via email with Dr. Javle though, he was very helpful and responsive. If you talk to him, mention Derin from Sarasota… Good luck on your trip and scans!
No fishing so far today, but we’re cooking meatballs for a superbowl ‘party’ at the clubhouse. No real bad effects chemo wise, tennis for an hour yesterday and then hit the gym for biceps/triceps while the kids were in fencing. Took a 30 minute nap before dinner and that was it. Today was just running errands and nothing strenuous, but eating will take a lot of energy a bit later! Keeping my fingers crossed… That Emend anti-nausea stuff makes me a bit jittery, but other than that nothing. Enjoy the football!
