Health Update 9-16-10 and a Few Thoughts on the Kindness of God

Hi everyone it's me, the blogger formerly known as the Jollyblogger.  Just thought I'd pop in to say hi and see what it's like to blog again. 

Over the last few months chemo really got to me so I didn't do much of anything, but I'm kind of coming out of the fog now and thought I'd go ahead and give you an update. 

I had a CT scan a couple of weeks ago and the results are good.  I found out that I actually have 5 or 6 tumors in my lungs, so that wasn't a happy thing.  But they have been there all along and the reason nobody made a big deal of it apparently was that there were only two that were big enough to be of any concern. 

The good news is that, in the 18 months or so that I have been on chemo all of the tumors have shrunk significantly.  The biggest tumor was obviously in my colon, hence the surgery in December of 08 and the next biggest one was about 2.5 inches in my life.  There was another one in my liver almost that big.  The good news is that both of those tumors have shrunk till they are only about a centimeter now and all of the tumors in my lungs are a centimeter or less.  There was no dramatic change in size in any of them since my last CT scan in April, but there were a  couple that may have shrunk a millimeter or so. 

The best news is that I am getting a break from chemotherapy.  It was getting me down and I was getting to the point where I feared having to continue with chemo almost as much as I feared getting a bad report on the CT scan.  So I have the month of September completely off with no chemo at all.  Then in October I'll go on a maintenance regimen with a medicine called Avastin.  Technically, the medical personnel don't put this one in the same category as "chemo" drugs.  It's what they call a "biologic" (I think that's the word) and it works by cutting off blood supply to tumors.  This has been a part of the cocktail I have been getting all of this time and come October it will be the only thing I'll get.  The only real side effects it has is that it increases blood pressure and it can cause bleeding.  So I do have to watch out for bleeding but over the whole of my treatment I have had only minimal bleeding in my mouth and nose and it's been much less over the last few months.  My BP has gone up a bit but I have some medicine. 

So the bottom line is that I expect minimal if any side effects.  I'll see the doc again in November and I suppose we'll schedule another CT scan at that time.  If there is no growth in tumors I'll get to stay on this maintenance regimen.  But needless to say I am very happy that I can look forward to almost three months without chemo.  

Right now I've been sick all week and I don't know if I'm still just recovering from the chemo or if I have come down with something, but I do expect to get better and start enjoying life.