We Fought Over Who Was Going To Give You The Good News…
August 27, 2009
…so said Dr. W. when he called this morning with tumor markers.
Last month? 4200 (and something)
This month? 2900 (and something)
That’s a roughly 30% drop, so the math inclined tell me. And tests of my liver function show that beleaguered organ is working a lot better.
Okay! So!
Wait…why isn’t Mary more stoked about this? Because during the last treatment we did (chemo Exempra or whatever it was called), the first month my numbers dropped 500 points, and the next month they went up 900. I can’t, for my own sanity, get too excited about this. When it’s been a few months in a row, maybe.
But it’s certainly way, way, waaaaaaaaaaaay better news than we expected, especially after the tension and worry of the last month (I keep meaning to write that email but haven’t; I will soon.) and Dr. W. is certainly very, very pleased. What he thinks will happen is we will get 4 to 8 months of marker dropping or holding, and then a rise again. When that happens, I switch to Femara (the nice pill I was on between Cancer: The Return in 2002, and this whole saga, beginning in late 2005, aka Cancer: The Extended Dance Remix) and ideally, that puts me in a holding pattern.
As you can see, there are a lot of “ifs” in this scenario, not to mention discussions that are couched in months, and not longer increments.
But you know? This news is pretty damn cool.
Yes, it is,