Today Nelson writes about the new hope he feels after comparing body scans from July and the current week of September. The dynamite immunotherapy chemo seems to be shrinking the cancer, as they’d hoped. It’s difficult to believe, but the pictures tell the story.
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September 22, 2022
Today was a big day for us here In Rochester. We had the results of a scan interpreted to us by our main oncologist. To recap, I’d been on an oral, chemotherapy dose of 2 strong drugs that the research teams at Mayo were able to match genetically with the particular type of “small-cell” cancer I have.
This meant that for the past 5 weeks, my treatment is nothing more than taking 2 pills in the morning and 1 at night, which would essentially “shrink” the cancer, wherever it was in my body.
Each person reacts differently, so we didn’t know what sort of side effects I would have, or how quickly it would work. And of course, it might not work at all. The only way to find out is to try. Then, at the end of 6 weeks, they do a scan and see.
So here we are. I have 2 pictures from that scan. The scans are taken as if I were cut into .75 mm thick slices like a tree, looking up from my feet. In the pictures there are 2 lungs in black and the spine, organs, and other arteries in the center, presenting in white.
The first picture, from July 1, looks much more crowded than the second from Sept 17. Looking at the second picture I can see the difference, how much more clear the photo looks. Other pictures were taken from the same vantage point and same dates but further up toward my head.
I asked for those because I wanted to see a shot of the largest tumor, “before and after.” It had gone from 5.5 mm to 3.6 mm, but what does that look like? The pictures show an artery coming into the heart. It’s nearly totally collapsed by the tumor in the earlier shot and wide-open in the most recent one!
This is great news, and we are so happy with it. If it keeps going like this, I will be in great shape before long. Of course there are snags along the way, and the fevers this weekend are an example of that.
As for pausing treatment, we’re resuming on Monday, pending a spike in my liver levels that showed a little concern today. Each patient responds differently to treatment, and I wonder why I didn’t have fevers up until now.
The Doc said he has seen patients taking the same meds where one has a totally different set of side effects than the next. I am unique, so we pause and resume. Hopefully, we get another 5 weeks of treatment without fever. If we do, we react to it and hope to be able to keep going. After all, the best 2 words he said today were, “IT’S WORKING!”
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“Be strong and courageous. Do not fear…” (Deuteronomy 31:6)