Today we met with the doctor to get the results of Friday's PET scan. We'd already gotten the image disc on Friday and I've seen enough of them to know that the news wasn't going to be good, and we've had all weekend to try to prepare ourselves.
Lisa's cancer is growing again, and growing aggressively. In the just five weeks since they stopped Lisa's most recent chemo, and it's now three months since the last PET scan, it has come back and grown faster than the doctor usually sees. It is throughout the right lung again, and has returned to the right femur, hip and elsewhere in Lisa's pelvis bones. As the doctor put it, "It's very serious." Of course it's always been serious, but it's been less serious while Lisa was in partial remission and we had hoped for a long, or even permanent, remission.
Besides making her feel poorly, it's also had an effect on Lisa's blood even in the absence of chemo, bringing on some anemia. This contributes to her recent fatigue and getting easily winded.
The doctor wants to start on a different chemo combination called EP/PE consisting of Etoposide (VP-16) and Cisplatin tomorrow. It's known to be harsh and likely to have worse side effects than any of Lisa's previous chemos. The doctor says it only has about a 15% chance of doing any good, but that's the odds he'd given the last mix which reduced Lisa's active cancer by over 68%. Another option is to go back to that previous mix, but they don't like to restart with a chemo unless it's been at least 6 months since the previous cycles ended.
If Lisa does go ahead with the doctor's preferred chemo, it will be Tuesday (6 hour infusion), Wednesday (2 hour infusion) and Thursday (2 hour infusion), with a white cell booster shot on Friday, and then two weeks off other than a blood panel each week.
Lisa's cancer is growing again, and growing aggressively. In the just five weeks since they stopped Lisa's most recent chemo, and it's now three months since the last PET scan, it has come back and grown faster than the doctor usually sees. It is throughout the right lung again, and has returned to the right femur, hip and elsewhere in Lisa's pelvis bones. As the doctor put it, "It's very serious." Of course it's always been serious, but it's been less serious while Lisa was in partial remission and we had hoped for a long, or even permanent, remission.
Besides making her feel poorly, it's also had an effect on Lisa's blood even in the absence of chemo, bringing on some anemia. This contributes to her recent fatigue and getting easily winded.
The doctor wants to start on a different chemo combination called EP/PE consisting of Etoposide (VP-16) and Cisplatin tomorrow. It's known to be harsh and likely to have worse side effects than any of Lisa's previous chemos. The doctor says it only has about a 15% chance of doing any good, but that's the odds he'd given the last mix which reduced Lisa's active cancer by over 68%. Another option is to go back to that previous mix, but they don't like to restart with a chemo unless it's been at least 6 months since the previous cycles ended.
If Lisa does go ahead with the doctor's preferred chemo, it will be Tuesday (6 hour infusion), Wednesday (2 hour infusion) and Thursday (2 hour infusion), with a white cell booster shot on Friday, and then two weeks off other than a blood panel each week.
