Round Six, Part Duex

Good Afternoon All,
Today I had Taxol and Zometa (a bone strengthening drug). We were holding off on the Zometa during Rounds 4 & 5 due to an issue I was having with my gums. Dr. D (Barak is now officially referring to him as my "drug dealer") thought that the Zometa was causing my gums to be sore and bleed, but we've now established that it is a side effect of Avastin. This is good news as research shows that Zometa is a great drug for patients on chemo let alone those like me who have cancer in their bones.
The past week I've been feeling really strong and energetic. Barak and I have been to the pool several days this week and will go again this afternoon. I managed to swim laps one time for about 30 minutes (my first "workout" since being diagnosed).
On a side note, I wanted to go back to explaining the results of my scans a little bit further. Essentially, the "stable" report that the radiologist gave was good news. In order for a radiologist to report "change" from one scan to the next, there has to be a 25% or greater increase or decrease. Since the decrease wasn't substantial enough for the radiologist, Devlin explained that this is still good news as his assessment is, that at the very least, my liver is smaller (the tumors have shrinked more, just not as notably as the first scan) and the bones take an extremely long time to show healing on CT scans (calcification doesn't happen over a few months but rather several months to even a year). As for changing my treatment, the only other addition to the next three cycles that were missing from the last two is getting a white cell booster shot every week to keep them as high as possible so I can receive even more chemo.
We are leaving tomorrow for Vineeta's wedding in Anaheim. I am so excited! This is the highlight of my summer and I am so proud to be there to celebrate with her, Nimesh and their family. I will be reunited with some of the family members I met when I was traveling through India too! I'm not sure who is coming, but we will see them at a prayer service and luncheon on Friday afternoon. It will also give me and Barak a chance to see people in Southern California that I love and adore which makes me extremely happy.
Off to the pool!
Zijian for now (goodbye in Chinese)!

Results

Hi All,

This AM Devlin told me good news. My scans showed that I'm stable. No new growths, and no significant improvements. This is probably due to the fact that I only got about 2/3 of the chemo treatment I had when I started. He wants to review the scans himself since there wasn't anything too specific said about any of the areas.

More later!

Waiting!

Still waiting on the results. Hopefully we'll get them when we see Devlin tomorrow AM for the start of round 6!

Scans

I'm going in for a MRI of my brain today and CT scan of my midsection tomorrow. My oncologist, John Devlin, is pretty good about calling me if he gets the results before my next appointment which is a week from today. Wish me luck!