Hello Everyone,
Well, here's another report on Posy. Sorry for the delay, but things have been jumpin' here.
First let me say that Posy is feeling much better right now. She has stopped her first chemo because it was not doing her enough good and has started a second type of chemo. The new chemo takes 1 hour of intravenous injection rather than 6 or more. Posy likes that! It is also less toxic to her body, so she is feeling better. Posy likes that also! This routine is given weekly rather than every 3 to 4 weeks, which is OK too because she feels better. (In fact, they give her some pre-treatment drugs for nausea and such. One drug is a steroid to assist the anti-nausea drug. This wires her for about two days. She says she feels like her old self again and has lots of energy. So she likes this too!)
We will have to wait for three weeks or so before they can do blood tests and another CT Scan to test the effectiveness of the new therapy.
So we are on a new path to wellness at this time.
The following is some of the more technical stuff I have to report. Many of you won't need to read further. The above section says it all about Posy to date. The following is just medical info.
Posy's previous chemo was Taxol and Carboplatin. These are specifically geared to breast, peritoneal and ovarian types of cancer (as per the FDA). All the indicators say that this regiment has not decreased her cancers appreciably either by the CA-125 blood test nor the CT Scans.
We did visit a gynocological oncologist and she reported that she did not feel that Posy had peritoneal/ovarian cancer as per the tests and responses to the current regiment. She did feel that it may be gastro-intestinal, but that was not her specialty.
Our oncologist indiacted that he did not feel that it was gasto-intestinal because the GI specialist did not find any cancers in his extensive testing of Posy before we started the first chemo.
The one thing that both our doctors agree on is that Posy has: adenocarcinoma from unknown origin. The way cancer is treated depends on the type of cancer it is. Posy has cancer, but they don't know what kind it is. That is they don't know the original source and therefore don't know what kind to treat. So our only option is to try other therapies to try and find one that works.
She has now been switched over to Gemzar that the FDA has indicated works for Lung and Pancreatic cancer. She will be tested in a few weeks to see if this approach is successful. If not, to plan is to try 5FU that is approved for many types of gastro-intestinal cancers. Beyond that, our doctor indicates that thalidomide may also be of benefit.
So we just keep trying. At least Posy feels much better and can fight this thing on a mental level much better with the current regiment.
Hope I haven't bored you all. I hope you think of Posy now and again. I'm sure she would love to get an email from you.
Bob
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© 2000-2003 Robert Snyder
URL: http://www.snyderville.net/posy0906.html
First created: November 12, 2000
Last updated: June 18, 2005