Because of the storm recovery, no landline phones, and still spotty power outages, yesterday we went to a different radiology center but still serviced by the same radiation oncologist. Lisa had just the radiation, without the Ethyol injection. We'll do the same thing today, and then on Wednesday, when we see the chemo oncologist, Lisa will be evaluated as far as continuing the Ethyol, since she's having a really bad rash at the injection sites, and there is concern that this local reaction we see at the skin might be leading to other problem reactions that are more internal. Lisa's cough has become much worse again over the last week as the skin reactions have gotten more pronounced. It's difficult for the doctors to determine what's causing what. As our doctor put it yesterday, sometimes it comes down to managing side effects and risks. In this case, it will be deciding if the benefits of the Ethyol outweigh the side effects and potential risk of other side effects during radiation if we stop using it.
Along with the Navelbine chemo and normal radiation on Wednesday, Lisa will also get a new CT scan. This scan is not the normal diagnostic CT, but is done inside of the radiation clinic and is used for potentially narrowing the exposure field in future treatments. The radiated field is bit bit more broad during the initial 7 weeks of treatment, and but the for the later radiation treatments, they try to narrow it in, if practical, to just the detectable tumor mass itself. Although it's not a diagnostic scan, it may have some diagnostic benefit. The radiation oncologist said if it shows that the tumor mass is smaller, that definitely means it's dying off. However, if the scan shows that it's the same size or even larger, it really doesn't mean anything predictive because this type of scan doesn't differentiate between live tumor and dead tumor, and sometimes cancer cells expand before they die. We don't see him on that day, so he's said that he will call us and let us know about what the scan shows as far as size.
As far as yesterday's treatment, as good as Lisa had been feeling for the last five days with no radiation, by mid-evening last night she unfortunately started having her typical post-treatment discomfort and fatigue.
UPDATE: With some schedule changes and confusion because of the down time for power outages, Lisa had the radiologic CT rescan this afternoon instead tomorrow as originally planned, and it appears that the radiation may be beginning to have a positive effect. Please pray that is indeed the case and that it continues!
Michael
