The Day After

Mistie had her chemo and radiation yesterday. She took it all well without complications and surprisingly felt really good last night. She will have radiation every weekday for 9 treatments, but so far we are very happy with how things are going. Today we are hoping to go to the temple after her radiation.

First Dose of Chemo

I told Mistie that walking back into the room where she had chemo, to start it again, made me feel like flopping on the ground and kicking my feet. You always have smells or places that trigger a reaction in your memory, this is one I was hoping to forget. Well today we are getting our first dose of chemo. Dr rich was considering using Taxol and Avastin to fight the cancer and zometa to add some strength to the bones. He discussed Mistie with some other doctors this morning and considering that she has cancer in the brain decided to change to a Taxol and gemzar. So far she looks like she is taking it fine. This treatment likely wont make her loose her hair and should just make her feel tired. He will monitor her blood to determine if the treatment is helping; otherwise, he will switch the chemo.

He also said that the last time he drew her blood in August she was at normal levels and now she was obviously way over on a tumor marker. I asked him if it is normal that three months ago she would be fine and then for it to explode like this. He said that it happens, and doesnt know what may have triggered it after 5-1/2 years.

Days 1-6

Welcome to my blog. Russ and I thought it might work better to keep everyone up to date and we would both write updates every so often.

Well we finally figured out why my muscles have been aching. Last Thursday we went to a GI doctor in AF after we found that my blood counts had been unusual with a high iron content. She recommended that we get a CT scan. After that Russ and I went down to Zupas for lunch. By the time we got there she called us and asked if we could come in her office. It was funny because she asked if we were available right away then I said yes and I think that she was trying not to scare me so she said let me check my schedule. Then without out pausing she said ok come in right now. We joked around about maybe winning a prize or something as we drove back up to AF. Mostly it was just to help us stay calm as we thought of all the possible reasons why she might want to see us right away. We really weren't too alarmed since she was a nursing assistant and in our experience they sometimes act weird and jump to conclusions. Anyway so we arrived in the office and she dropped the bomb on us, really rather brutally. Worst nightmare come true! I just sat there and shook my head as she said that I have several spots of cancer in my liver and some on and in the bones that they could see in the small area that they had scanned. Well she called my oncologist, Dr. Rich, and he said he was waiting to see us in his office. We drove down to Provo and waited in the waiting area in the hospital. After what seemed forever we discussed with him that the cancer was throughout the liver and that he wanted to start treatment right away. From how it sounded we asked if there was any point in doing chemotherapy... or should we just take a vacation for a few weeks and try to spend as much time together as possible. He said that if I were over 40 then the story might be different but with a young family and that I appeared to be healthy he thought that we had to try to extend my life as much as possible. We also talked about how the treatments before had done a great job in stopping the cancer and that this had the same chance of slowing it down. Unfortunately, we had only seen a small area of the body and for us to make a better decision we needed to get a PET scan. The PET scan shows any cancer activity through out the body. The PET scan was set for Monday... 4 days away.

This is probably going too slow... So Monday we got the PET scan and went to see our oncologist. He said that the cancer was throughout and his main concern was still my liver. Tuesday we met with our radiologist Dr Clark. He showed us the pictures of the PET scan. Every time it shows some cancer it lights up in that place. As we scanned down through the body Russ said it was like watching a firework show. The short of it is that I have cancer in all of my bones, my lungs, my liver, and small areas in my brain.

Russ: Well it is really unusual to hear the doctors say that we should come to their office as soon as we get done with the last doctor, no apt necessary. The doctors kept asking if she had any pain in her hips or back and then would pound down her back, well after seeing the PET scan it was clear why they were asking. The area of particular interest was her hip since the image showed that the cancer had dissolved a significant portion of her hip joint. We are scheduled to get that irradiated today after the chemo, which should stop the cancer from progressing in that joint. Dr. Rich said that she should be extra careful and not to do any jumping (she is banned from the trampoline).