Friday, June 28, 2013 - Update

Hello my friends...

I spoke with Jenni earlier in the week (Jenni is the RN in charge of the Sea Squirt study at Compass Oncology). As it stands it looks as though the study will begin in late July as originally thought however, she also told me that the pharmaceutical company than manufactures SeaSquirt has pulled back a bit due to logistics so there is no guarantee. Initially this concerned me greatly until my friend Sharon and I talked it out...if I was just getting treatment and not participating in the study I would be receiving treatment once monthly. This means that if the study starts in late July, I would miss one treatment...maybe two. I will check in with Jenni again in two weeks to see where we are and decide if I want to wait, or move forward.

My friend Carol S. reminded me today...it's a marathon, not a sprint. Smiling...good advice my friend.

Other than some coughing...which I am still uncertain if it is asthma related, cancer related, or both...and being a smidgen tired...I feel great.

This is an actual Sea Squirt!

Monday, June 10th - Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

I have decided to join a study that will be starting in July. There will be 

two groups. Group A will receive Doxil, group B will receive Doxil and Sea 

Squirt. Group A receives treatment every four weeks, group B receives treatment 

every three weeks. Group B receives treatment every three weeks because you 

receive a smaller dosage of Doxil. Treatment will last approximately 90 minutes. 

Dr. McCormick will still be at the head of my medical team. Today I met Jenni 

and Samantha, two RN's who will be heading up the study at Compass Oncology. The 

Sea Squirt folks have done multiple small studies, but this will be the first 

big (nation wide) study. All costs outside of my standard treatment is paid for 

by a grant supporting the study. Jenni also thinks it will cover the cost of 

the Doxil. I will have a CAT scan every three months and be on chemo 

indefinitely. Not because I am participating in the study, but because of my 

reoccurrences. The study requires that I have a BRCA test which determines if 

your cancer is genetic. This was offered to me when I was first diagnosed with 

cancer, I opted not to have it done because of the cost involved (this is not 

covered by insurance). I am thrilled about this because the cost is about three

thousand dollars and it's covered by the study. This won't have an impact of my

life, but it certainly could for Mom, Sandy, Becky, Toni and Sara.

Next appointment, Monday, July 15th.

I might be stronger than cancer but I am not stronger than this blog. I have tried five time to correct the formatting...as you can see I failed each time. Oh well...choose your battles!

Monday, June 3, 2013 - Third Times a Charm

Well, here we are again. Last week I had a routine CAT scan and today I got the results. Unfortunately, I didn't get good results. The cancer (I refuse to say my cancer) has reoccurred. It's in my lungs again and thankfully nowhere else. The nodules that were gone, or insignificant in size in February 2013, have doubled or more in size plus I have one new one...oh boy. All in all I think there are six. Rotten little bast@&$s. Dr. McC's objective is to provide me with quality of life so one of the options she talked about was not taking any action at this time because I'm not having any symptoms. However, I think that possibly some of the things that my Pulmonologist linked to my asthma in February...dry cough, off and on sore throat, might actually be cancer related so between that and the quick growth I am not comfortable with that. We discussed two other options. A). I start a once monthly treatment of chemo administered by IV with a drug called Doxil. Apparently it is well tolerated and can be administered long term (for like a year). One of the side effects can be an itchy, burning rash on the palms of your hands and the bottom of your feet. Sometimes blisters will actually appear at which time they would stop treatment. B). We also talked about a possible study that is being conducted where they use Doxil and Sea Squirt (which is now synthetically made but was originally a secretion derived from sea animals). It has been successful in patients with a certain type of melanoma and they believe it could show promise for patients with reoccurring ovarian cancer. Dr McC. doesn't know if the timing is right for the study or if she could even get me in but it is an option we are looking at. I go back on Monday, June 10th after I have had some time to think and we will plan our attack.