Rollercoaster

It's been a crazy these past few weeks. I'm going to spare some of the details in some cases. I figure that I'm using this blog to keep a record of this whole exciting experience, I can't just focus on the respective puppy dog and fluffy kitty moments.

About two-three weeks ago my stomach started hurting. Eventually I went into the doctor and had an X-ray. She said I needed to, um, clean myself out, which I did, but the pain was consistent. I got in touch with the doctor and she said to go into the hospital, where they'd provide me some professional services in the cleaning department. After a night's stay, nothing really major happened. I then went to radiology, where they took another X-ray and determined that my guttiwuts were all clear, so I then checked out of the hospital and ran over to get chemo. My oncologist didn't want to proceed until we did a CT scan. SO, then I went over to the imaging center, and promptly went through the device. After waiting a while back over at the cancer center, the results finally came back from the CT: all clear. I started chemo, and finally got out out later in the evening.

The next day I got in touch with the SBRT (radiation) team at Stanford in order to follow up with them regarding the symptoms following the radiation treatment. I remember them mentioning that there might be some discomfort of sorts. I've yet to hear back from them with a more definitive answer. The nurse has relayed the issue to the doctor.

In other news, we got the results back from CellPath, the place that tested my blood and the cancerous cells within it against chemo drugs. The results came back that my cancer is the most sensitive to FOLFOX, which is FOLFIRINOX minus one drug, irinotecan. My wife and I are headed to Johns Hopkins Hospital next week to talk to another oncologist there, who also works with the CellPath team. The JHH folks have also reviewed all my most recent scans from Stanford, and the doctors who have been informed of my case are the same ones who are on their pancreatic tumor board. I'm hoping to hear some ideas on treatment, as well as ask some questions (i.e. why would the absence of one drug cause greater sensitivity with the remaining ones?), and hopefully get some new ideas and options.

Additionally, for some reason I have The Who's "Teenage Wasteland" playing in my head except those two lyrics have been replaced with "chemo patient". Try it. It's quite catchy. I should warn you, the video below won't work on mobiles, so check it on a desktop.

 

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