CSF you are Testing me!
Friday was an exciting day, or so we thought? My brain/spine oncologist announced that I had had a cerebral spinal test come back with no cancer cells. I was elated, surprised, but elated. There seemed to still be a decent amount of cancer in my cerebral spinal fluid in my spine from my MRI, but I am going off my eyeballs looking at something I am no expert in and I don’t know how much chemo it takes to knock that much cancer...
Remembering and Forgetting and Remembering to Remember
I have been holding on to this post for quite some time (I keep forgetting to post it, chemo brain-much?). A couple of my friends had offered to write posts for the blog offering advice about how not to murder your friend with cancer (dark humor gets us by sometimes). Christine’s post is probably more befitting of where my brain has been more recently. My friend Kaz also wrote a past post called Support is About Showing Up....
This is the Kind of News we Like to Hear!
The night before my scans scanxiety set in full force. I was pretty stressed for my appointments. I was meeting with the new radiation oncologist that specializes in the brain (since my last one ran off to Duke). Introductions had been made and I wasn’t a new patient in case I need brain radiation at some point, I stil have some of the same concerns I did when I went to Seattle, but leptomeningeal mets trumps all things. It...
All Angle Attack
We are attacking my brain tumor and CSF cells from all angles – Xeloda and Topotecan both can reach inside my brain. I am close to finishing my final day of my first Xeloda cycle. So far, so good. Strangely enough, somehow everything I have been on for awhile has apparently had a lame impact on my tastebuds and Xeloda doesn’t have quite the same impact. Sweets are DELICIOUS some foods taste off, but fruits and sweet things...
Brain Chemo, Take 2
I feel like someone just stood in front of the screen and opened and closed the placeholder CUT! On that last little round of who knows what the heck that was. Now we are at take 2. Apparently Methotrexate intrathecally makes my meninges mad. Mad enough to flare up and cause crazy fevers that I have never seen before. The thermometers at the hospital were digital and I maxed them out… so, I was kind of hot… Pro tip –...