Monday, May 28, 2007

A week later...

I'm doing very well. I feel 100% normal again. Thank God!

The worst of it was Wed, I'd say. I was nauseous. My stomach was stormy. The nosebleeds did not hurt but they were a nuisance. A friend of mine helped me through the worst of it. She does energy healing. It's Reiki and more. She got rid of negative energy and put in some healing energy. I was back in the office by Friday.

We drove to New Jersey in the weekend. We had a great time with family just bonding. The Blessed Mother visited (block rosary) so we all prayed together.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

So far, so good...

I had my chemo treament yesterday (Alimsta) and I'm at work right now. So far, so good. No adverse side effects and I'm willing it to stay that way.

Thank you so much to everyone who said a prayer or just even sent me good thoughts, intentions or good vibes. That is helping a lot! Please continue since I'm not out of the woods yet.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Hard Blow

Just got my PET scan results. It's not good. My primary tumor doubled in size. Upside is that it's still confined to the lungs.

I'm starting a new round of chemo on Monday. Hope that side effects will not be too bad. But I've coped before and I'm going to just keep on going.

It's very difficult to hear after one year of the disease being stable. I had such high hopes with Tarceva. It just was not for me. Too bad.

In as much as this is bad, I'll continue to fight and live as best I can as long as possible. So, I'll need more prayers from you all.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Brief History

Some have been asking for a quick rundown so here it is.

In Dec 2005, I had a routine physical just coz I turned 30 that year. I was expecting a clean bill of health. But I did mention to the doctor that my father had a heart attack in his late 30's so they did an EKG.

Everything was fine except for the EKG. There were some abnormalities that they could not even determine with a sonogram of the heart.

Jan 2006 - So I saw a cardiologist. She did a CT scan of the heart. Turns out my heart was great. Although my lungs had cancer. So a pulmonologist verified it to be Stage 3B Non Small Cell Lung Cancer (Bronchio Alveolar Adenocarcinoma). It was inoperable since I had it in both lungs and it had spread thru the lymphatic system. (Usually a cancer grows in tumors. Mine had spread into thousands of tiny little tumors all over the lungs.) I started to see my oncologist.

I started treatment Feb 28, 2006. My first regimen consisted of Cisplatin and Taxotere on a 21 day cycle. I receive treatment at my doctor's office - Virginia Cancer Care in Loudoun county.

May 2006 - I had a CT scan that showed no change. My doctor and I decided to move to a gentler regimen so that I can work. My new regimen consisted of Carboplatin and Gemzar. Since the side effects were not too bad, I started to go back to work full time.

Aug 2006 - My doctor got insurance authorization to start me on Avastin.

Jan 2007 - PET scan showed no significant change. Again, we changed my regimen - Tarceva (since it has shown promising results on young, non-smoking Asian females) and Avastin. I'm not on chemo anymore. I'm on targeted therapy.

May 2007 - PET scan showed that the primary tumor has doubled in size. And that the spread of the cancer is now more dense in the right lung than before. We're changing the regimen again. Avastin and Alimta (chemo) every 21 days.