Amy and I trekked into Manhattan and saw Dr. Meng at MSKCC bright and early today. The mission was to discuss the chemo protocol and they took us right on time for our 8:45am appointment. You will probably be surprised when I say we were out of there in less then 15 minutes. No joke, we were out of there by 9am. I guess that despite this being serious stuff it’s still just that cut and dried. We asked some questions and we were back on the train heading back home before we knew it. A nice side benefit to the trip was breakfast at Ess-a-Bagel since that allowed me to kick a lox craving that had been building up for a while. LOL.
As I just told my father, just like there’s no such thing as being a little pregnant you either have cancer or you don’t. And I have cancer… BUT… It’s true that I don’t have the same physical symptoms as last year and that there are fewer cancer lesions to treat this time around. Dr. Meng made it clear that my complete response last year is a bit uncommon and, therefore, significant. He said that there’s every reason to expect the same general response this time. However, he also said, as Dr. Richards has mentioned before, that cancer is never truly “cured”. It’s possible that this same cycle of having it go into remission and then to come back will repeat itself. He explained that these treatment cycles may kill 99.99% of the cancer and to the point where remaining cancer cells are undetectable by PET or CT scans.
OK, here are the details for the chemo protocol we’ll be using. As before it will be a 3 drug protocol where one is new and the others are related to two that we used last time around. The protocol is called “EOX” and uses, Epirubicin (drove requirement for the MUGA scan), Oxaliplatin (instead of Cisplatin last time around), and Xeloda (instead of 5FU). These drugs have some unique side affects as well as all of the same ones I had to deal with last time around. I guess it’s the variety that will make this “interesting”. LOL. The one bit of very good news (after all there has to be SOME kind of good news, right?) is that the Xeloda is administered orally. Therefore, I will NOT have the 5-day pump as I did last time for the 5FU. Not having to sleep with, shower with, and drag that pump around will be terrific. Although not having Lana come to remove the pump each treatment will be missed (no comments from the peanut gallery….LOL).
That’s about it. The medi-port gets put back in next Wednesday morning and the first chemo treatment will be the very next day. This was the same scenario last year. In fact, I’m exactly 2 days ahead of schedule from last year. With a bit of luck I’m hoping to not have to repeat this NEXT year!! LOL.
2 comments:
Hey Jack, I know how you love the Allman Brothers and many of us from the website are sending out those healing and positive vibes. You have such a wonderful attitude which is a huge positive step for the better. Please stay strong and know we are all thinking of you and praying for clean bill of heath once and for all. Would love to meet you at the Beacon as I hear you have tickets?
Peace and comfort,
Sue
Hi Jack,
I hope today went well-or at least as good as possible. I posted a comment yesterday on the past blog because you mentioned the CSU visit there.
Sue is a good friend of mine from the ABB board and a concert junkie! She is the person who made the dvd's at the Wanee Festival last year including the prayer circle that you and your family where included in.
I hope the new protocol is effective and easier to handle. Feel good.
Uncle Jack
Post a Comment