It IS cancer. However, it is the same type of non hodgkins lympoma as she has. While other tumors shrunk a bit, this one grew. Why this particular one went rogue and did that nobody knows.....it just happens sometimes. Thankfully, it is NOT the type of cancer everyone was sure it was.
So, at this point, she has multiple inflammation points in her intestinal tract which should start going away slowly, many tumors that have shrunk a bit, and one rogue tumor that grew significantly. She also has a minor version of the sinus mess I have so they swabbed her nose to rule out the flu and make sure it is nothing more than the run of the mill virus going around in these parts.
The plan going forward is to do the maintenance chemo first mentioned to us about a month ago. That will consists of a daily chemo pill via mail order from some specialty lab (she also has to be approved for a federal program to pay for this as it is insanely expensive) and a once a month 4 to 6 hour infusion of Rutuxian in the infusion room of the doctor. After about three months they will most likely do another Pet Scan to see how she is doing.
All things considered, I think we got the best possible news. Obviously, the fact that it is cancer is not good, but at the same time the fact it is the same type and class as the cancers she already has is a good thing. They believe that the one-two punch of the two maintenance drugs will not only keep the others in line, the rogue one will also become contained. The oral chemo deal is manufactured in some way to make the body hostile to growing new tumors. What they are putting her on has shown a lot of success with it beyond the original target group of patients it was originally designed for who were fighting various types of skin cancer.
Hopefully all this will come together in the right way and she can have some semblance of normalcy for awhile.
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5 comments:
This is good news. This is exactly what happened to Judy, but it was incorrectly diagnosed. That did not work out well.
My first thought after it was over was that I thought that is what had happened with Judy, Bill. I hope they have not misdiagnosed Sandi.
I'm glad the news is better than you feared. Thinking of all of you. BTW, I had a cold/flu/virus last month that took forever to clear up, so I sympathize. My asthma went crazy and I got my usual bronchitis. Good luck with all of this!
That it is cancer is, of course, not good news. That it isn't the kind you feared, and that it can be dealt with via an ongoing chemo regimen, is great news.
I am very glad that she did not have the worse cancer. Went to see a new gastroenterologist on Monday so I could get my colonoscopy and endoscopy set up. It is not common practice to do cancer screening for the stomach so I quickly had to think of all the reasons. The most convincing one was that when did the previous one they found lots of polyps in my stomach. I had no clue when I had my first endoscopy, it was only to find out if I had celiac disease (I don't). Stomach cancer usually spreads before it is noticed and then it is too late. Since I have MGUS, I am now much more aware of all the many other cancers. My BMB showed mutations for stomach, pancreatic and a slew of other ones. Those were found by accident, they were looking for Multiple Myeloma.
I wish your wife the very best and am glad that she has the lesser of the two cancers to fight. All cancers are monsters.
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