Friday, December 13, 2013

Third round knock out for Xeloda.

Hello people,
How are you friends? Things are busy here as we gear up for the Christmas holiday. Then our annual New Years eve junk food night. We also will have company from Colorado on New Years as my mom joins us here in Knoxville that week. Today My daughter and I did a little Christmas shopping. One of the gifts I purchased will require a trip to the post office to ship off. Do you just dread going to the USP this time of year? It is one of my least favorite places, followed closely by the DMV. Going Christmas shopping today has finally put me into that Christmas mood. We have our decorations up. This year we went light on the decorations. Half of our stuff is in storage. Going from a house to a town house is a bit of a downsize in room to display things. But it is beautiful even though it is a simple Christmas. What sort of decorations did YOU put up this year?

I finished my 3rd round of Xeloda yesterday. I also went for my oncology check up and blood work. It was a really informative, very good Doctor visit. This round of chemo went so much better. I learned from the previous rounds that I need to take anti-diarrhea meds before taking the chemo. This really made a huge improvement in how well I felt. I had one really horrible day of sickness on day two. It had me feeling very sad, and a bit hopeless. The rest of the treatment was better. Then seeing the doctor yesterday, I got incredible news. It can't be confirmed until I have a pet scan in January. Here's how it goes.... I had tumor markers in the 100's for a steady period of months over the past almost year. Then we moved here to Knoxville and it was still high. Probly because of the time off of chemo during the move, and the tumor growing on my heart. Then it went down during the 1st cycle of Xeloda to 37. Big jump eh? Then it went down to 31 for the second cycle. The labs for just prior to the 3rd cycle were 21. Now the scale is that a normal healthy person would test at 0-28 even though there were no active cancer growing in them. I am at 21. So that means I'm within the normal healthy person range! I will have a Pet scan the firs of the year to confirm no evidence of disease. Even if we confirm that, I will stay on the current dose of chemo for maintenance. But hey, I'm believing that the cancer has been taken out in a third round Knockout!!! Yay!!

Well, Friends, that is the good news I wanted to share with you. Take Good care of yourselves. Thank your for your prayers, emails, texts of encouragement and positive thoughts. I love you guys!!!

Merry Christmas,

Leslie

Trodelvy trial failed.