Done with Radiation!

I received my last radiation treatment on Thursday morning. Dr Rhees said she is confident that they treated the right area, but it may be 4 - 6 weeks before I feel real relief. She said that obviously the tumor had done some nerve damage and it will take a few weeks for the nerve endings to re-train themselves on how to respond to movement, etc. I will meet with her again on Tuesday to go over my treatment plan regarding all of my prescriptions.

My tumor markers had gone down from 63.4 to 42.6 in just a short amount of time. We usually celebrate that as good news; however, Dr. Gupta said he is not sure that we are going to be able to rely on those numbers anymore to accurately pinpoint what is really going on with the bone cancer. He scheduled a PET scan for October 17th to get another clear picture of where the cancer has spread, tumor sizes, and locations. I will get another tumor marker test at the end of October to see how they have changed in a month. I am scheduled to meet with Gupta on November 1st to go over results and set up my next treatment plan.

I have been very thankful that I have been able to drive and take my girls to all of their activities. I have been able to attend all of their sporting events, too. It is the simple day to day tasks that really mean the most to me. We are so blessed to have so many people in our lives that offer to help us out, too. We really appreciate it!!

Week #2 of Radiation Completed!

Two down and one to go. I will finish up my radiation treatments on Thursday. The doctors said that the radiation will continue to work in my body up to a month after the treatments are finished. The main way we will know if this has worked will be my pain level.

I finally started a new drug called Neurontin on Friday evening. The doctors had been trying to get me to use it two weeks ago, but I was very hesitant about starting it. The potential side effects made me nervous, but I felt I had no choice but to try. I just needed some relief.

Amazingly enough, I felt so much better yesterday. It was the first time in weeks that my pain was minimal. My goal all week had been to feel well enough to go to Indianapolis with Rob and the girls to the Sagamore Athletic Conference football games at Lucas Oil Stadium. I had my heart set on the spicy shrimp cocktail at Harry and Izzy's, too.

We had a parking pass and the restaurant was very close, so I didn't have to do too much walking. We had an awesome lunch with friends and did a little shopping. Western Boone also thumped the Chargers, so that was fun to watch, too.

I had my tumor marker test on Friday and will get those results at our meeting with Dr. Gupta on Tuesday afternoon. I am also scheduled to get my once monthly infusion of Zometa and Faslodex injection on Friday, but we are not sure if Dr. Gupta is still going to go with that plan or change it.

Please continue to pray for us as we go through this and that these treatments and medicines work to control my pain.