The preliminary report on today's CT Scan shows "significant shrinkage" in the tumors, which is absolutely the best news that I could have hoped for (short of a miraculous total disappearance of the cancer but let's not get greedy!)
Here are some details from the preliminary report:
- There are no new nodules in the lungs!
- The 1.3cm lung nodule shrank to 0.9cm.
- The 0.9cm lung nodule shrank to .5 cm.
- The 6mm lung nodule shrank to 2mm. (There are six nodules but they only measured three representative ones.)
- The mysterious 4cm x 4cm "solid mass" in the pancreas shrank to 3.0cm x 2.5cm!
- The 4cm tumor in the psoas muscle did NOT shrink. It stayed the same. I am thinking it is so messed up from the Cyber Knife radiation that even this fabulous chemo cannot make it shrink. Oooh, and there are NO new bony abnormalities where the tumor is eating into L4.
Yahoo! Such fabulous news! So we stay the course. I do three more cycles of Gem/Tax, which will take nine weeks. Then we do another scan.
Knowing that there has been significant shrinkage makes it so much easier to get the chemo and laugh at the side effects!
Thanks everyone for all your prayers and good thoughts and comments and email.
I said the rosary every day for the last 15 days asking for help. I also prayed to St. Jude, the patron saint for lost causes, and St. Peregrine, the patron saint for cancer survivors. And of course today I started a novena to thank Jesus and Mary for their help.
Sushi tomorrow night!
