A Short Treatment Break

It's better than no break at all!

It's been a long time since I've written anything because I just been plugging along with my last, lengthy round of chemo -- Adriamyacin. I had some concerns before beginning because the stuff has the nickname "the red devil" but I actually had a pretty easy time with it. The infusions were quick, and no steroid pre-treatment the night before. I was able to work the next day, Fridays, then felt my worst on Sundays and improved until I was back at work on Wednesday. There was some nausea but it had gotten to where the side effects from the anti-nausea pills bothered me more than the nausea. The two biggest side effects were fatigue and a gummy mouth and bad taste in my mouth. I was able to take a trip to Disney World in December and held up surprisingly well. My hair also grew back very slowly to the point that I quit wearing a hat and dyed it blue again in early January. But I was definitely ready for a break having been on chemo since early August.

At my last round on January 26th, the nurse practitioner told me my CA125 had gone up to about 19, which is not normal for me. That got me worrying a bit. Then when I went in for my pre-chemo appointment on Wednesday, before my last round of Adriamyacin, the doc told me it had gone up again to 28 or so. Not good. Since Adriamyacin is so hard on your heart, he thought it best to get a new CT scan to see what was up rather than do another treatment if it wasn't working anyway. So instead of chemo on Thursday, I had another CT scan. I just knew it would be bad news with that rise in the CA125.

Got the call yesterday that everything is still stable, though! That means,other than the slight growth in my hip tumor last spring, nothing else has shown growth or progression since finishing treatment in the spring of 2009. Gotta be happy with that! I am due for a MRI, but everything else is fine for now. That means I didn't have to do my last chemo and I don't go back again until March 23rd. Five weeks of no appointments. And 8 weeks off of chemo. Yay!

I do believe the plan is to start a new round of something in March, though. But I will enjoy this break while I can. :)