Wednesday, December 9, 2009

The never ending war

Yesterday, Dec,8th was infusion day, round 14. It was also bubble burst day! Denise and I had a sit down chat with Dr. Kengla, my oncologist. I was hoping that one day to be Goliath free and never need chemo again. That is the bubble that was burst. It was made clear that being in (NEDS) does not mean Goliath free. It only means that the tools available ie; ct scans and blood markers are unable to detect it. Because I have metastatic disease it means that even if we can't see Goliath by conventional means, it is still there lurking under the surface in the form of micro metastasis and is constantly trying to invade and establish its self in distant organs.
There is two other problems with this type of cancer. The first is that for unknown reasons this cancer leaves no identifiable blood markers. The post oncology tests after my colectomy were blood tests and they showed no markers and we know how that turned out!!! This means that we can not use this method to keep track of Goliath when I am in Neds. The second problem is that if I take a chemo break it is very likely that Goliath will reappear only this time it will be chemo resistant. Seeing that chemo is the only tool that is available we can't take the chance right now to risk loosing that!!!
The plan is to finish this block of chemo which is two more rounds(rounds 15 and 16) with out Oxaliplatin which will take me through the Christmas break then back on Oxycrappin as my son calls it for another block (8rounds) and monitor the nueropathy.This is going to be hard.!!! This also means back on the steroids as well. When I finish this block it will be one year on chemo!! We will continue to get ct scans at intervals and battle Goliath. The never ending war. I will get into NEDS and I will continue on a maintenance program or maybe take a chemo break and prove them all wrong a second time!!!!