Cancer Champion

The doctor said there is some swelling there. But he doesn’t know if it more tumor or if it’s fluids. We have to wait for another MRI to see what’s going on. We have one scheduled this Saturday. He strongly suggested another chemo called Avastin, which is an IV chemo. I think she is going to try that for a bit while we pursue alternative and adjunctive treatments.

She has lots of headaches all day long and isn’t able to do much besides walking with me when I walk the dogs and checking emails. So, she is cognitively able to do stuff, it’s just her body stopping her.

I’m doing okay, a little tired and sometimes frustrated, but I am getting a lot of help from her mom and some friends and people from church are bringing us meals every couple of days. So, that is a blessing.

Thank you again for everyone’s prayers!

Just a quick note to update everybody on Christina’s condition and the whole story behind another tumor that she went in for surgery today.

The last MRI from November show a new small spot, the doctors and we were not too concerned about it that much since it was small and we were discussing a different kind of treatment.  He suggested some trials and another chemo, CCNU.  We were thinking about alternative treatment and natural healing methods.  We did a PET scan to see what the new spot really is, but that scan came back inconclusive since it wasn’t the right kind of PET scan.

We met with the doctor last Tuesday for more followup and had to schedule another MRI to see what is going on.  The next day, Christina started to get weak kneed and nausea with vomiting.  She seemed to lagged and had delayed responses since the weekend before, but then it just started to get worse fast.  The doctor suggested we go to the ER the get the MRI right away instead of waiting for the scheduled one.

So, six weeks later, this MRI showed that the new spot has grown substantially and we had to act faster now.  They recommended surgery and Avastin, a more aggressive type of chemo.

She had the surgery today, went in around noon and finished around 4pm.  We are in the ICU right now, she is sleeping and recovering.  The doctor said they took out about 70% of it.  We will have to talk with the oncologist on our next steps, but right now we are just letting her recover from the surgery and the anesthesia.

All your thoughts and prayers are welcomed and very much appreciated.

Well, after 5 days of chemo and 3 days of radiation, she is feeling pretty tired. :no:

But, at least the headaches and nausea are mostly gone. I’m hoping she will get better rest now and have more energy.

Had the first day of chemo and radiation today.  She seems okay, just as much energy as before, but it’s only the first day.

She was a little week kneed about half hour after taking the chemo drug.  We’ll just have to be careful right around that time.  The physician assistant did say to make sure to have lots of water and a good breakfast since she can’t eat for 2 hours before and 1 hour after taking it.

Also, I want to send a big thank you to Alex, one of my best friends who is a post-doctorate at UCLA.  As soon as he found out about Christina’s condition, he helped me get in contact with the director of the neuro-oncology team at UCLA, who is going to take a look at Christina’s reports and MRI to give us a second opinion.  They may have access to more clinical trials there that can help.

She will be going through six weeks of radiation and chemotherapy.  The radiologist says the part that is being radiated will lose hair and we don’t know if it will grow back.  The nurse at the patient and family class said it wouldn’t grow back, but the radiologist said it would, so we are hoping it is the latter.

Either way, she will have a bald head for at least a couple of months and hopefully a stubbled head for a few more months after that.  This is why we are throwing Christina a “hat party,” where we get her hats and scarves to help her keep her head warm and wigs to give her some “hair.”  :cowboy:

Also, getting together with family and friends with lots of food is always nice!

Here’s a registry for head coverings.
http://www.headcovers.com/Show/199321/

Let me know if you didn’t get an invite.

We had a somewhat long day at the doctors yesterday, follow up with the neuro-oncologist at 3pm, blood draw and pharmacy right after that, then we were late to the 4 o’clock appointment for a CT scan simulation.

The news is that the clinical trial she was qualified for is now closed due to funding and low success rate.  So, now it is back to just the standard treatment of radiation and chemotherapy.  They (the doctors) have a lot of confidence in the standard treatments, so that’s a positive.