Excellent news

I had my mid-term PET/CT results on Friday. It showed a complete response to chemotherapy, meaning that they see no traces at all of disease on the scan. There is no noticeable lymph adenopathy or anything else. This is, literally, the best news I could have possibly received. It doesn't mean that I don't still have cancer. But it is still the best news one can get.

There is talk of stopping chemotherapy early and moving me to "maintenance". What this really means is just stopping Irinotecan and only doing 5-FU and possibly Avastin. 5-FU is available orally in a brand-name drug called Xeloda. That is nice because 5-FU is the injection that requires the 48 hour pump. I might stay on Avastin as well which will require infusions still, but that's okay. Supposedly Irinotecan is the big side effect producer (except Avastin causes me nose bleeds and a bit of GI bleeding too). So overall quality of life should improve.

Dr. Kasamon is going to consult with Dr. Diaz and Johns Hopkins (whom I saw at the beginning of this ) and Dr. Van Echo at his practice (another well regarding colorectal cancer guy). They will hatch some plan as to what they think the best course of action is. There isn't a whole lot of clinical evidence that clearly shows what one should do in a situation like this. It's not often to find someone have a complete response half way through, apparently. I like that Dr. Kasamon is going to do that of his own accord and I think that with the experience between the three of them they will make the right decision, whatever that may be.

I also talked to Dr. Fenig, my urologist, on Thursday. He thinks that I should have my stent removed in the near future (like whenever we can get the appointment scheduled). He saw the PET/CT as well and thinks the best thing is to take it out and see if anything bad happens with my kidney (which hopefully there won't be). So that's more good news.

Overall this was a good week for me.

Also Emily and I are being spontaneous today. Last night at 11:00PM we decided we were going to go out to Cumberland (2.5 hours west in very Western Maryland) and take a historic stream train to Frostburg and back. Then we'll probably spend the night in Cumberland or the surrounding area. The train leaves at 11:30AM today, which means we need to be out of here by 8:30AM. So I'm going to stop typing and get a move on.