Kicked Off the Clinical Trial

Today was Scan Day, and the news was not good.

I knew something was not right when Dr Reidel talked about this and that for a few minutes without once mentioning my scan results. And the clinical trial nurse was in the room, too, which is unusual. Maybe she was there to hug me. She did end up cracking some pretty funny jokes later on.

The news: Two tumors in my lungs doubled in size, but they were very tiny to start with! One went from 9mm to 18mm, and the other went from 2mm to 4mm. Plus, the mass in my pancreas also grew by some unspecified but small amount. (The tumor in my psoas muscle stayed the same; that is the one that is a charcoal nugget still smoking from the radiation and chemo it has been bombarded with.)

It did not matter how small the growth was, however. Any growth at all meant that the clinical trial drug is no longer working, and so I got booted out of the study.

My eyes immediately filled with tears, and those tears started rolling down my cheeks silently. I just ignored the waterworks as I asked questions and listened to the news.  Dr Reidel handed me a very small box of tissues, and I wiped out almost the entire box.

I am getting four weeks to bounce back from the clinical trial drug and get ready for more chemo.

The chemo will be Doxorubicin (brand name Adriamycin). There will be nausea and vomiting. The chemo is red, so I will have freaky red tears and red pee for a couple of days afterward.

Here are the good things that I am supposed to keep in mind:

• I don't have to deal with the clinical trial pills anymore. No more keeping them in the fridge, no more making sure I consumed only water for two hours before and after I took the pills.
• The tumors grew only a little bit.
• I do not have all that much cancer (there are nine tumors but they are very small).
• Doxorubicin works from about 60% of people.
• Doxorubicin is injected pretty quickly -- I won't have to sit around for 3+ hours getting this chemo.

 Chemo starts on June 2.

 I will probably feel wonderful for the next four weeks as the clinical trial drug gets out of my system. I'm going to enjoy feeling wonderful.