He Was a Livery Stable Owner

March 18, 2008

O Best Beloveds, I wanted to write this because I think it gives an interesting glimpse into the wacky upside down world of cancer. I met with Dr. W. yesterday, and in between his exclamations of approval over the kicky new haircut Craig just gave me (really Craig; he kept stopping to say “Your hair is so cute!” This is one the many reasons Dr. W. is delightful), we discussed Options Depending on This Month’s Tumor Markers. We won’t have the results for another couple of days, but it goes like this; if the markers go down or remain the same, I will remain on the increased Xeloda dose. Pause here to observe that several people at the clinic yesterday asked “How are your hands?” and when I held up the bright red extremities in question for inspection, they all winced. (Good to know I’m not over-reacting to the side effects; one does often wonder.) Such things will continue if I keep on the same dose, which, if it’s effective, would be optimum. But if the markers go up, as discussed last month, he wants to try hormone therapy. This still concerns me–I don’t like chemo at all, but it does work, usually, whereas there seems something faintly jumping-a-cliff-with-only-a-small-net about going off it and on to something less obviously aggressive–but he thinks it’s worth a go because A) I had such a long remission on something similar before, and B) he has at least one patient who has had two different three year remissions–and was taken into remission–thanks to two different hormone regimes. The drug in question, Aromasin, won’t have any side effects at all, which makes it very attractive indeed.

So here’s what it boils down to:

1) If the markers go down, that’s good, but I have to stay on increased Xeloda, which is bad.
2) If the markers go up, that’s bad, but I get to go off Xeloda and on something non-toxic, which is good.

I swear, I don’t know what to hope for. It’s Hobson’s Choice!

I will keep you posted. We should find out before we leave on Thursday.

I did always wonder who Hobson was,