November 18, 2009
The latest protocol that Dave was on when I posted last did not work. In fact, they were concerned that it had caused the bone lesions that we are now dealing with to appear, as they were not evident prior to the Sutent. He was so very lucky in that he didn't have any of the horrible side effects that drug could have produced, but in the end, it may have made the cancer more agressive in his bones. He is taking infusions of Zometa (like Fossamax, but intravenous and much stronger) to harden his bones to try to fight more bone mets appearing. This is a very long, ardous road but we are ever hopeful that we will find the right combination of treatments to slow down the progress of this disease.
With the summer and fall farm season buzzing, it was hard to get to this blog to post anything meaningful. I have to say that at this point, we are at the "wait and see" stage of treatment, meaning that Dave is on a new protocol, since the Sutent didn't work. It hasn't been but 2 months and that is barely enough time to see if it is working. He goes in next Tuesday for bone scans, CT's and an MRI and we have an appt. after those are done with his 2 oncologists to see what the results are. It is hard not to think about it all the time.
Since my last posting, Dave has had to have more radiation for the bone lesions in his hip and ribs. We chose the radiation option, even though he had said "no more" because it is for pain control and he is in so much pain now, he would probably do most anything to relieve it.
Of course, the radiation made him sick and the fatigue was overwhelming, but that has mostly passed and he is up and around again. We joined the YMCA and he is trying to use swimming as a rehab activity. He is still experiencing a lot of pain where the spinal surgery was done. But he is walking better now and his mobility has improved a bit. Not using the cane regularly, but still needs it sometimes. Overall, he is doing pretty well, all things considered. Hopefully the news next week will be good news. I will try to post the results here afterwards.
NOTE: Many of you who know us well know that we are very much into the idea of natural cures, so all of this "modern medicine" has been very hard to accept. Our stance on the medical profession as overusing synthetic drugs, etc. has always been about their overuse for things that could be easily cured with natural methods, not about something as serious and life threatening as cancer but it still has been hard to accept all of this.
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”
