Round 8 (Updated)

     I’m not sure why, but this round of chemotherapy left me in bed for three days, and now, even though I’m on day 5, the effects are still slowing down my energy and activity. It may be because of the platelet issues I’ve been having (this cycle was started at the lowest point I’ve been to receive chemo). Whatever it is, it left me curious to see if it is working to help, or if the side effects are going to create more health issues than it’s worth.

     The answer to that question will come in part on Tuesday. First of the week I’ll be getting a blood test to see how the platelet counts are holding up. They’re also going to run a new tumor marker to see if the chemo has helped slow down my cancer activity.

     I’m no doctor, but I understand that platelets “stop bleeding by clumping and clotting blood vessel injuries.” (wikipedia quote)Again, wiki tells me that “platelets in healthy Caucasians is 150–400 × 10 to the 9th power per liter.” My platelets in January were 91, and at the start of my last chemo cycle were 53, dropping about 5 points a week. Chemo typically knocks those numbers down for 7-10 days, and then hopefully they rebound. Mine haven’t rebounded yet between these past two cycles. If they don’t rebound after this cycle, then continuing chemo may not be an option anymore. If they drop below 50, most hospitals will order a transfusion. My oncologist waits until they drop to 10 before doing that, or when there is uncontrolled bleeding. Obviously a nervous proposition as bleeding becomes a real issue when your blood has nothing in it to help it clot. No power tools this week!

     They are also monitoring three different tumor markers. One for pancreatic cancer, one for intestinal cancer, and one for ovarian cancer… No, I don’t have ovaries, but men can form cancer cells that are the same as those women get who have ovarian cancer. All three of these are elevated in me. Last fall, the one for pancreatic cancer measured over 3700. (Normal is usually less than 100.) By January, my level had dropped to 140. At that time both the CT scan and PET scan indicated my cancer had “resolved.” Two months later when I was retested in March, the tumor marker had already shot back to over 2700, and a new CT scan showed the tumors had returned, grown, and were essentially like my initial scans. That didn’t take long at all.

     What does all this mean? I happened to get a very aggressive form of cancer that is simply a beast. Cure rates are dismal. The survival rate for my diagnosis is about 1%. Emotionally it’s been an up and down roller-coaster in my soul and for my family. Predicting the future is unreliable, so we just take it day by day, test by test, and ask God to guide our decisions and give us peace along the way.

     Thank you for praying with me on this line. Next week I’ll post how those blood tests came out. Fingers crossed, prayers said.

– Sandy K.