Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Kris, Dave and the Lumps: Chemo #5, Week #1

Tuesday, 29-July-2008

Went to see Dr. Moran and for the infusion of Taxotere and Herceptin. Dr. Moran decided to forego Xeloda for this round since Kris' hands are still somewhat red. She's also got soreness in her hands and feet as well as the acid reflux. It's not as severe as it was, but, it's still there. We may well stop Xeloda from here on out. We'll decide whether or not to use it when it's time for the final infusion. The infusion went without event and we celebrated a lack of Xeloda by going out to eat... granted, our choice of restaurant was not as wise as we were hoping it would be. :)

So, now the course of action is one more infusion in three weeks. Three weeks after that, we go into surgery.... the light can definitely be seen at the end of this tunnel.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Kris, Dave and the Lumps: Chemo #4, week #4

Wednesday 23-July-2008
Monday, Kris went to see Dr. Moran's PA after calling in. Her hands are a bit more red and much more sore. She's also had acid reflux since Thursday. When she saw the PA she was taken off Xeloda for the remainder of this round of Chemo which isn't much since Tuesday was the last day of Xeloda.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Kris Dave and the Lumps: Chemo #4, Week #3

Sunday 20-July-2008:
Woke up today (10pm to most of you) to Kris showing me her hands. They were red. Not as red as they were before with the higher dosages of Xeloda but red enough to be noticeable. Up until now they have been a wee bit darker than normal... sort of a darker pink than normal but everything has been fine so we watched. About Friday her Acid Reflux and Heart Burn started getting bad too. It's not like we didn't expect this but we were hoping it would not show up. Note that this Tuesday is her last dosage before her next infusion of Herceptin and Taxotere.

Our plan is to call Dr. Moran in the morning before she takes her dosage and consult with him. With only three or four dosages left (Monday and Tuesday)... well, I'm not sure if he'll ask us to stop or continue.

She's currently on only four pills a day, two in the morning and two in the evening. If I am recalling correctly, that's 2000mg per day. When she started it was 400mg per day and the really bad side effects didn't start right off... in fact, they started about the second course of dosages. Thus, our fear is that if we stay at the current dosage, the next course will be worse.

Edit: Sorry, was off by a factor of ten with the current Xeloda dosage!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Kris, Dave and the Lumps: Chemo #4, Week #2

Tuesday 15-July-2008:
Kris visited Dr. Moran. Her hands are sore but only slightly red. Her acid reflux is up, but, not nearly as bad as it was at the height of her Xeloda toxicity. Dr. Moran decided to keep her on her present dose (good news) and to back off her appointments to once every two weeks rather than once a week (I am taking this as good news too). He also said the lumps are 50% reduced which is great news!

Kris is doing well. Other than the fact that she can't taste salt, she is able to eat, and taste, real food!

Thanks for the thoughts folks... we are still haning in there with your help!

Friday, July 11, 2008

Kris, Dave and the Lumps: Chemo #4, Week #1

Sorry, been slacking:

08-July-08:
Infusion today (after the imaging). Everything went well. The PA we saw put us on Xeloda at 4 pills a day (half the original starter dose). Kris wound, still open, still looks reasonably ok.

11-July-08:
Kris' stomach is a bit upset. Last night she was run down, which we are attributing to the Taxotere; it causes flu like symptoms soon after infusion. Otherwise everything seems to be going ok... we are very happy with Mondays news that the lumps are quite a bit shrunk from the original size.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Kris Dave and the Lumps: Chemo #4

7-July-2008
Kris went and saw the surgeon and things are progressing well enough that he wants to see her every two weeks rather than every week. Understand that the wound still has not closed, it's just making progress. He said that she'd have a heckuva scar to show up. He has hopes of fixing that when he removes the port or that the plastic surgeon will be able to fix it during reconstruction surgery.

8-July-2008
After much fuming, fighting and generally wrestling with the image folks, Kris was finally allowed to have her sonogram. It seems that they aren't used to doing sonograms without Mammograms to compare to. If you will recall, however, there was nothing to see on the Mammogram, only on the MRI and Sonogram. The most excellent news is that they had trouble finding any of the lumps save the one that was the largest. All of them have shrunk markedly and thus seem to be responding quite well to the treatment. Cause for celebration, in my humble opinion. :)

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Kris, Dave and the Lumps: Chemo #3, week #4

Tuesday, 1-July-2008
Saw Dr. Moran. Kris still has heartburn that's pretty bad, still has some problems with her hands, though they are still much better than before, and her sense of taste is still... off. Todays taste challenge: salt; she can't taste it at all, apparently. Based on this, he decided to wait on seeing her at the next infusion (next Tuesday) before deciding on whether or not to restart the Xeloda.

Kris' I&R (clotting rate) was at 1.7 which is too low for our purposes, but, it's only been since Thursday and that might not be long enough for the clotting to have changed with the current dose. Note that Xeloda has a synergistic effect with most blood thinning agents, thus, while off of Xeloda, they may well have to increase the Warfarin to get the desired blood thinning effect.

Kris is a lot better without the Xeloda... There have been reports of laughter and smiling, though we intend to be cautious and consult a second opinion to confirm that these are actual smiles and laughter. Better to be safe than sorry. :)