Shrinking
I am imagining the tumors like the wicked witch - "I'm shrinking, I'm shrinking!" They ARE shrinking. My liver is even smaller than it was last week by several centimeters all around!
As a result of having less bad stuff in my body, I feel pretty good post-treatment. Last week I was pretty knocked out, but tonight I'm fine. My blood counts were all good today, with platelets at 316,000. I really think I'm healing. It's fantastic.
One thing that I hadn't mentioned: my tumor markers had actually gone up last week. However, Dr. Glick is not worried about this. The jump was not as drastic as it had been from June to July, where it doubled. It could be that it had gone even higher, and now is on its way down. It could be that the tumor dying is causing the marker test to show a higher number. But when it comes down to it, clinically, I've improved. My liver is clearly getting smaller, and I'm feeling better. My lungs are totally clear - no sign of the effusion at all. All these point to the drugs working, and the tumor marker test usually is the last indicator to reflect this. In two weeks, we'll test it again. I'm sure it will be lower. But Dr. Glick is convinced, and so I will NOT need another CT scan now. Yay!
As a result of having less bad stuff in my body, I feel pretty good post-treatment. Last week I was pretty knocked out, but tonight I'm fine. My blood counts were all good today, with platelets at 316,000. I really think I'm healing. It's fantastic.
One thing that I hadn't mentioned: my tumor markers had actually gone up last week. However, Dr. Glick is not worried about this. The jump was not as drastic as it had been from June to July, where it doubled. It could be that it had gone even higher, and now is on its way down. It could be that the tumor dying is causing the marker test to show a higher number. But when it comes down to it, clinically, I've improved. My liver is clearly getting smaller, and I'm feeling better. My lungs are totally clear - no sign of the effusion at all. All these point to the drugs working, and the tumor marker test usually is the last indicator to reflect this. In two weeks, we'll test it again. I'm sure it will be lower. But Dr. Glick is convinced, and so I will NOT need another CT scan now. Yay!
posted by Rachel Troxell at 6:20 PM
3 Comments:
That's a great image, I can picture the tumor shrinking into a puddle of water. This is just fantastic that your liver has shrunk all around and by such a significant amount. So glad too that you're not feeling too bad tonight. But even if you felt like crap for a couple days post-treatment, it's ok because THE TREATMENT IS WORKING tra-la tra-la!
Love,
Maren
Rachel,
This is such good news. I can see the smile on your face as you wrote it. We'll keep praying.
john
I'll imagine them shrinking along with you. The power of collective thinking!
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