Thursday, January 14, 2010

No Growth!

I'll start by telling you that the CT Scan today showed no growth at all. All eight tumors stayed the same! Yippee! So, not only am I positive that I am getting the real clinical trial drug, now I am also positive that it is working.

This was a long day, though. I had labs at 10:00AM, CT Scan at 11:00AM, and then an appointment with Dr R at 2:30PM. My plan had been to sneak out after the CT Scan and go for sushi at the awesome place down the street where I had sushi with Deborah... but a nurse convinced me to take a beeper and stay in the building somewhere because she would try to get me in earlier than 2:30PM.

Well, that did not work.

The beeper never beeped. Around 4:30pm, Dr R's nurses found me stretched out on a padded bench in the corridor outside of Clinic 1A, reading. We chatted about my fabulous vacation as well as the three trips one nurse made as a high school missionary doing construction work in Haiti, Egypt, and Peru. Eventually we got down to business and I answered all their questions about how I have been feeling and what drugs I am taking.

I saw the doc himself at just before 5:00PM -- and that was when I finally got the good news about the CT Scan. I have to admit, however, that when the nurse brought me a fresh supply of the clinical trial drug at 4:30PM, I stopped worrying about my CT Scan results because I figured that they wouldn't be giving me more of the drug if my results were bad. (They told me that if there is any growth, I get kicked out of the study.)

I can understand why they were running so late today. Every waiting room was jam packed with people. It was CRAZY today. With Martin Luther King Jr Day on Monday, lots of doctors needed to see their Monday patients today.

Basically, I hung out at the hospital doing nothing from 12:15PM to 4:30PM. When I say "doing nothing," what I mean is getting progressively more worried about the results of the scan :^)  I also ate lunch, wandered around the building, sat outside in the sunshine till I got cold, finished reading Spare Change by Robert Parke. and started reading The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie novel.

I picked up hot and sour soup for dinner on my way home.

One hour till I can take my pills and go to sleep!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

YEA!!! I made an extra effort to get to the hospital last nite and to the other place tonight hoping to see you and get a report, but for some reason I thought your scan had been on Tuesday. Oh Well. This is Good News, Now you get to stay in the trial. Keeping you in my T's & P's. Love ya.

Anonymous said...

Karen,
YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is GREAT NEWS. hooray hooray hooray. I wish it was not so late back there right now or I would call you to say this in person. YEA!!! LOve you, xoxo Debbie

Unknown said...

YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I checked tonight to see if you'd written anything about today's tests and find the best news! I am so happy for you! I love you, Gail

Robyn said...

OMG!!!!

YAY! YIPPPPEEEEEE !

Karen,

Sending you a big hug and if I were a dog I'd give you a big sloppy lick to cover your face.

So glad you had fun on your trip and could come home to good news.

Much love! Robyn

Unknown said...

Take the above comments--combine--double--and that is our comment.
So happy with your news.
Love ya,
Mom and Dad

Daria said...

Great great news ...