Some Girls Prefer Carnations: Short update

Monday, November 5, 2018

Short update

We won't have a firm plan for 2 weeks, which is when I see Dr. Oncologist again. Before then, I will have a PET scan and a bone scan to determine if there is cancer lurking elsewhere in my body. I don't think there is, and of course I hope that there isn't, but if there IS the good thing about that would be that she could biopsy it and see what its receptors are. Because we are treating Lloyd in the absence of knowing for sure what its receptors are. Our assumption is that Lloyd is Her2+ like my breast cancer was, but Lloyd could be something different, or at the very least is quite possibly something different now after being irradiated.

I will also see Dr. Radiation Oncologist in the next two weeks, and he is one of my favorite Drs. for answering all of my questions. Although I don't even know what my questions are yet. What a whirlwind!

Dr. Oncologist today was terrific, and she has at least 4 possible treatment plans. She said that she's pretty certain that whole-brain radiation will be a part of my treatment plan to kill Lloyd's slowly growing undead appendage. She also has some infusion drugs to offer me, including Avastin and irinotecan. Or possibly some other drug (sounded like "zolata", but google is coming up empty with that) + neratinib, the last of which I'm already taking. And she had two other combos of these drugs that she mentioned, but she is going to do some more research before making a decision. ALSO, presuming that Lloyd is still Her2+, she thinks that the neratinib isn't working, so she's not too keen to continue it.

Now I'm going to leave all of this uncertainty here in the Midwest for a few days and go wiggle my toes in some warm sand.

4 comments:

HollyNovember 5, 2018 at 9:56 PM
You so deserve this vacation Sis. Love you so much.
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LoriNovember 5, 2018 at 11:26 PM
Fly, swim, bask, breathe!
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AmiNovember 7, 2018 at 11:09 AM
Firsts of all... all the virtual hugs a girl can send to you and the rest of the family. I am glad you all can get away, and damn... it is cold here, so good timing on that too! While you try to get back to a state of calmness and peace, don't throw too much sand at the sea turtles. They are having a rough go of it too. Love you sweetie and you and I really do need some time together. Miss ya.
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Melissa KaserNovember 14, 2018 at 1:57 PM
I think the drug is xeloda. Sending you lots of love. Hope your vacation was wonderful.
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Books I've read recently

TRUTH AND BEAUTY by Ann Patchett "'Grief isn't something to "be gotten through." It has no life of its own like that, it's just plain and simply there.'" and "History is strangely incomprehensible when you're standing in the middle of it."
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MY OWN COUNTRY by Abraham Verghese "I remember the acts of human kindness that illumine our world."
IN THE COMPANY OF CHEERFUL LADIES: No. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY NOVEL #6 by Alexander McCall Smith
CEREMONY by Leslie Marmon Silko
THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG by Muriel Barbery "There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we are surrounded by nature..."
A WALK IN THE WOODS by Bill Bryson
THE LACUNA by Barbara Kingsolver "'Soli, let me tell you. The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don't know.'"
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE by Lucy Grealy "Sooner or later we all have to learn the words with which to name our own private losses..." and "Part of the job of being human is to consistently underestimate our effect on other people..." and "Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them."
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS by Sarah Gruen "Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently spreads cancer throughout your spouse."
THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett "'I have decided not to die.'" and "Oh, I just break down then. It's like two years a doing and trying and hoping all come out at once."
THE TENNIS PARTNER by Abraham Verghese "Would that I had the chance in my sons' lifetime and my own to one day explain to them all the forces that moved me."
THE BLUEST EYE by Toni Morrison "And then the tears rushed down his cheeks, to make a bouquet under his chin."
REMARKABLE CREATURES by Tracy Chevalier "My life led up to that moment, then led away again, like the tide making its highest mark on the beach and then retreating."
RAMONA QUIMBY, AGE 8 by Beverly Cleary "Mrs. Quimby smiled and said, 'I can tell you're beginning to get well when you act like a wounded tiger.'"
THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway "You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived so very much that now I can enjoy everything so well."
THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN by Kate Morton "The happiest folk are those that are busy, for their minds are starved of time to seek out woe." And, speaking of hospitals: "An irony that a place relying so heavily on routine should operate so resolutely outside time's usual rhythms."
THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins "Of course, the odds have not been very dependable of late."
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS by Rebecca Skloot "That cancer was a terrible thing."
THE THIEF OF ALWAYS by Clive Barker "Was there some way...to take back the stolen years, and live them here, with the people who loved him, and whom he loved dearly in return?"
CUTTING FOR STONE by Abraham Verghese "The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not." Best book I've read in a year

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Monday, November 5, 2018

Short update

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