Good news on 1/8/19
Yesterday I received the radiology read on the PETscan. The radiologist stated that there were no indications of cancer from the scan and that the lit up section was indicative of a normal uptake of the dye. Now if there are small amounts of cancer, there can be false positives because of the uptake. Basically there is a chance that my cancer is functionally dead except for micro spots. The radiologist correctly reports my acid re-flux. It also mentions the thyroid nodule and states that my spleen is a bit bigger. This may be because my spleen is also trying to make up for low blood counts. Here is a link to see the results of the PETscan:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A7BEBOJ4TQj9XYZ6J8uurzUQzSSbNuew/view?usp=sharing
In talking to the doctor the highest chance of a re-lapse and death is the spreading of these micro spots around my body. Therefore, it is the best course of action to continue on the additional four sessions of chemotherapy because I'm healthy and my home team is managing the symptoms and actually weighed in at 194 yesterday. Looks like I get to be tortured more because I'm so well taken care of :).
One of the things that would improve surgery outcome is the reduction of scaring. Because of this, the oncologist and the surgeon discussed my treatment and if my next PETScan comes out the same way, they are recommending not doing the retardation theory as the purpose would be to kill the in place tumor and there may not be anything alive in place.
It still means that I need to do the surgery with all of the complications and recovery but there is a chance that my full treatment would be reduced which is a good thing. If I did radiation, I would still take some chemo pills during that month.
When looking at my numbers, it looks like the Nulesta shot really amps up my neutrophils (listed as Neu#) This is good as the risk of infection is down. I asked if I still needed the shot and he did not think they were high enough to trip a risk and he did not want them to be low.
Looking at my red-blood cells, my guess is that I might need additional blood infusions at least once during the next four sessions seeing that many of the times my hemoglobin points (in grams per Deciliter) were reduced by 1 and I'm at 9.2 and anything under 8 would be a concern. I'm supposed to get one point per unit of blood so I might need 2-4 units by the end of the 4 sessions. I'm doing everything I can to eat more Iron to keep my blood production up. This is not what a male usually does as high iron counts leads to issues with too much red blood cells and issues. Here you can find my spreadsheet if you want to see the numbers and some graphs. I was going to do some multi-linear regression series but the introduction of 3 units of blood and the low number of data-points makes future extrapolation problematic. So, future estimates of the need for blood are just eyeballing the data.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H1y4aghxGGfEZyBq--5RkVFMfemCWnymX0WV6e71C1w/edit?usp=sharing
Once concern was my platelet level. It really went down to 127 this time. I need to be careful not to cut myself and watch this number. I may need blood sooner rather than later if this number keeps decreasing. It also looks like my monocytes (listed as Mo#) and lymphocytes (listed as LY#) cells are low. This could also put me at a risk of infection.
I did ask if I could go on a cruise or vacation after chemo in the month waiting period for surgery and or radiation. This was allowable and I think Alexis and I are going to figure out how to do this. We don't yet know how this will work but we will figure it out.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A7BEBOJ4TQj9XYZ6J8uurzUQzSSbNuew/view?usp=sharing
In talking to the doctor the highest chance of a re-lapse and death is the spreading of these micro spots around my body. Therefore, it is the best course of action to continue on the additional four sessions of chemotherapy because I'm healthy and my home team is managing the symptoms and actually weighed in at 194 yesterday. Looks like I get to be tortured more because I'm so well taken care of :).
One of the things that would improve surgery outcome is the reduction of scaring. Because of this, the oncologist and the surgeon discussed my treatment and if my next PETScan comes out the same way, they are recommending not doing the retardation theory as the purpose would be to kill the in place tumor and there may not be anything alive in place.
It still means that I need to do the surgery with all of the complications and recovery but there is a chance that my full treatment would be reduced which is a good thing. If I did radiation, I would still take some chemo pills during that month.
When looking at my numbers, it looks like the Nulesta shot really amps up my neutrophils (listed as Neu#) This is good as the risk of infection is down. I asked if I still needed the shot and he did not think they were high enough to trip a risk and he did not want them to be low.
Looking at my red-blood cells, my guess is that I might need additional blood infusions at least once during the next four sessions seeing that many of the times my hemoglobin points (in grams per Deciliter) were reduced by 1 and I'm at 9.2 and anything under 8 would be a concern. I'm supposed to get one point per unit of blood so I might need 2-4 units by the end of the 4 sessions. I'm doing everything I can to eat more Iron to keep my blood production up. This is not what a male usually does as high iron counts leads to issues with too much red blood cells and issues. Here you can find my spreadsheet if you want to see the numbers and some graphs. I was going to do some multi-linear regression series but the introduction of 3 units of blood and the low number of data-points makes future extrapolation problematic. So, future estimates of the need for blood are just eyeballing the data.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H1y4aghxGGfEZyBq--5RkVFMfemCWnymX0WV6e71C1w/edit?usp=sharing
Once concern was my platelet level. It really went down to 127 this time. I need to be careful not to cut myself and watch this number. I may need blood sooner rather than later if this number keeps decreasing. It also looks like my monocytes (listed as Mo#) and lymphocytes (listed as LY#) cells are low. This could also put me at a risk of infection.
I did ask if I could go on a cruise or vacation after chemo in the month waiting period for surgery and or radiation. This was allowable and I think Alexis and I are going to figure out how to do this. We don't yet know how this will work but we will figure it out.
Amazing news, Stephen! Sounds like you are hitting it out of the park! Can you hear me cheering? My vote is for you and Alexis to take a much deserved cruise. White hot healing light continues to be sent your way! Love you and the fam.
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