Results

We went to see Ruth today and the news was mixed. There has been tumor growth since the scans at the end of May, although they still are smaller than from the first scans. On the other hand, no progression to other organs. The liver enzyme numbers came up a little too (wrong direction). We can't know whether the chemo break for a month was responsible or whether the abraxane had maxed out its effectivenes... in either case, it's time for a switch. So next week I move to a combination of gemzar and carboplatin, which we will do every other week. The side effects are expected to be pretty similar to what I have been experiencing, with the addition of significant fatigue. Glad that I won't have to try and balance work with all of this. We'll add the zometa back in next week too, and the avastin once the hole in my chest closes and/or I get a new port in and healed.
We also worked on changing my pain meds for the inflammation to the nerves in my chest. We've upped the fentanyl, and switched to the brand name (bye by $600) version, and added neurontin which may help with quieting down the nerves. I was literally sweating like a faucet yesterday from all the meds; it was making people uncomfortable looking at me, I think. Have only slept through the night once in the last 10 days or so, and I have hopes for this new patch, which I'll get tomorrow.
I'm in a support group for metastatic breast cancer patients at NYU (only about 6 members), but I missed a couple of sessions and I found out on Wednesday that one of us died in the interim. She was really young, under 40, and it threw me; I knew she was very sick but she was pushing herself to get to the group... I guess I just don't know where the line is between very sick and dying. We had a really meaningful discussion about figuring out what we might want at the end -- hospice? fight til the last drop? but we all know that the decisions that get made in the end are different from what you think when you are "relatively" healthy. In a way, having the group meet before I met with Ruth was a little helpful, I had already started to contemplate what if I wasn't getting better yet.
Albert was on NYU's Sirius Radio Oncology show on Wednesday with others from his support group. Not sure if this will recur, but will post the details if it becomes something he does regularly.