Kris, Dave and the Lumps: Chemo the last!

Tuesday 19-Aug-2008
Last infusion of Taxotere and Herceptin!
Saw a colleague of Dr. Moran. Seems Dr. Morans PA was out, Dr. Moran was on hospital duty and later we found out that another of his colleagues was out sick! She was very familiar with our case through the cancer conference! We'd heard early on that our case was going to be presented at such a gathering of Oncologists. What we didn't know was that they meet like this about once a month. On the one hand it's nice to hear that so many folks are reviewing your case. On the other, I can't help but wonder why our case gets so much attention. She suggested a change in our next appointment with Dr. Moran so that he would have time to hear the review from the conference before our appointment with him. The radiologist as well as our surgeon and reconstructive surgeon (read: plastic surgeon) all sit in on that conference too, so, we'll have a review where all of our Drs. are discussing our case.

She revealed that they only had the summary of the radiation films from the Round Rock Cancer Center from Kris' first bout with breast cancer. We needed to make sure that the full charts were forwarded. We signed another release form just to make sure that would not be an obstacle to getting the reports released from the Round Rock Cancer Center.

We then went on for the infusion and everything went smoothly. While we were doing that, I wandered off and rescheduled our appointment with Dr. Moran, scheduled the appointment with Dr. Antel (the Radiologist). His assistant revealed that he may well call and cancel if he's positive that we can't do radiation due to the previous treatment.

During the infusion we met a nice man I nick named 'stanley steamer' because he was carrying an oxygen machine around with him that would 'puff' every so often. He asked me if I was cheating to beat Kris at Cribbage... I assured him that I was not, despite the fact that it is pretty much the only way to beat her at the game!

When the infusion was done, we got a cup of kisses (Hershey's) and a certificate of completion signed by the whole staff... or at least those present! It's a nice touch we also got from the Round Rock Cancer Center.

Friday 17-Aug-2008
Met with Dr. Moran to review how things are going in preparation for Tuesdays infusion. Dr. Moran wants Kris to see a Radiologist to discuss the possibility of radiation treatment after surgery. We were given to understand that she's had her lifetime limit. This request personally makes me a little anxious that he doesn't believe we'll get a cure from the treatment we are going through. Kris is upset at the prospect of having a mastectomy with no reconstructive surgery until the radiation treatments are done.

He also wants Kris to get an MRI and a pet scan and to have those results before we see the Radiologist.

We made a point of showing him Kris' nails. They are discolored for the latter half of the bed (that's the red or pink part of the nail, attached to the finger). We were thinking this is a side effect of the Xeloda, but, it's apparently a known side effect of Taxotere. As for the Xeloda, Kris' hands are still just a tidge pink and her Acid Reflux is quite bad. Based on this, he decided that we'd not to Xeloda for this round... so, we are done with Xeloda! The down side is we have tons of the stuff left over... there's a pile of money down the tubes. It's not like we can give the drugs back for a refund and while the cost isn't huge for us, it is a cost somewhere and in the end we pay for these things by increased insurance rates (or companies dropping insurance). For the Acid Reflux, Dr. Moran suggested that we include Pepcid AC along with the Nexium. We'll give that a whirl.

Finally, before leaving we made appointments for the follow-up with Dr. Moran as well as the Pet and MRI scans.