Hi Shiny Friends, Sorry I have been offline so much. I took Thursday to wallow and try to decompress from the weeks stress. On Friday, Fisher was home from school, so that was active. My mother has returned to Calgary now. Ive had little time to write a usual blog, but I do want to pass along my medical update to those of you worrying. My birthday was magical. Carmen, Giselle, Jeanne, Eryn and Vij gave me a birthday party at one of my favorite Asian restaurants - complete with tiara, girly abracadabra wand to bring forth tempura, birthday balloons, custom cake and, best of all, my old boss and dear friend, Steve Goldberg. Steve was the surprise guest and I burst into tears of joy seeing him. I hadnt seen Steve in far too long. He is one of my favorite people and he shaped not only my career, but me as a person. He kept the laughs going and I had a simply wonderful time with everyone. It was so special and it goes down as one of my favorite birthdays. That night, however, I was very scared and often in tears. As you know, the doctor was supposed to call at 3:30 p.m. that day with the results of my CT scan and next steps. We waited for over an hour on the call-in number. When he didnt call in, I got very concerned that it was going to be bad news and they were waiting to give that to me after my birthday. The arrival of flowers, cards and messages helped to keep my spirits buoyed, but it was a hard night worrying. I knew the doctors had spoken that morning to cancel my chemo for the 12th. I did not know why they were not calling back in afternoon with further details. We could not reach them as the Cancer Center was closed for Remembrance Day. All very confusing. It all scared me. On Wednesday morning, Vij was able to connect with Dr. Calvin Laws assistant, Jessica. It was a great relief to learn that the reason he did not call was because he was stuck on a delayed flight with no opportunity to reach us. She quickly rescheduled for 6:30 p.m. that night with profuse apologies. PHEW. That night, Eryn, Vij, Carmen and I all piled on a conference line at 6:30 p.m. while Giselle drove up and took my kids to Chuck E. Cheese with my Mom to get them all out of the house. (Thanks for the gift card Adrienne, it came in very handy!! xo) Dr. Calvin joined the call about 5 mins late full of his regrets for keeping us waiting and missing the previous call. He was panting as hed been running through the labyrinth of tunnels in the hospital - desperately trying to get a signal to call us. I said Calvin, on our first date, you looked into my eyes, you held my hand, we connected. Then, you stood me up! Whats with that?? He laughed and said I know right!! Men!! He explained why he missed the call and promised to get our dates and relationship back on track. He then cut right to it and the following was relayed: So far, I have done 5 sessions of FOLFOX chemo. It is a systemic chemo - meaning it affects my entire system. It targets cancer cells throughout my body. This is important as there may be cancer cells in my system that are too small to see on a CT scan. This chemo hits these cells and all the tumors collectively. My lungs are clear. There are no new spots. They scanned my chest, pelvis and abdomen on my most recent scans. The good news is that the FOLFOX chemo I have had so far has successfully shrunk all of my tumors. Every single one. The radiologist confirmed all was going well, that FOLFOX was the right chemo for me, and each was responding. For this reason, they want to keep going with it. I am waiting to hear how many more sessions I will have and the dates. Dr. Calvin Law and Dr. Peter Anglin agree that while it is working, we should continue to suck every benefit out of it as possible. As it is rough on my system, they can plan some breaks to help me better cope as well. I am currently on a week long break. It lasts in your system for 6-8 weeks after the last treatment, so I am still feeling many side effects but receiving the benefits. There is another kind of chemo which targets just the liver and it is called chemoembolization. I copied the definition off the John Hopkins website as it is more thorough than what I can describe: Chemoembolization is performed by placing a small catheter from the blood vessel in your groin into the artery that supplies blood to the liver. This is analogous to the more familiar cardiac angiogram. The chemotherapeutic drug(s) are then delivered through the catheter along with a blood vessel occluding agent right at the site of the tumor. The result is that a very highly concentrated dose of anti-tumoral drug is delivered (without the normal dilution that occurs with a standard intravenous infusion) and the blood vessels are partially blocked with the occluding agent to starve the tumor of its blood supply. This double-punch can slow or stop tumor growth, and in some cases can even result in significant shrinkage of the tumor. So basically, they want to install a pump in my abdomen, directly into my livers key artery, to hit my liver hard. They want to do this for a couple of main reasons: 1. At this time, I do not have 30% healthy liver tissue remaining if they were to operate now. They need to shrink the tumors further to proceed with a successful surgery. The liver regenerates, but they can only remove 70% of it in a procedure. 2. The side effects from the chemoembolization are reduced from those of FOLFOX. This should give me a break from the harshness of that chemo, yet they can continue to hit the liver very hard and work to shrink my tumors further. They are hopeful that the FOLFOX chemo has killed anything small, so this will allow them to move forward in a more direct fashion. HOWEVER, The CT scan that I just had does give the team some concern that the artery they need to connect into is not viable for this kind of chemo. On the current scans, they do not have an accurate view of it and what they can see gives them reason to research further. Sigh. 25% of people cannot properly connect to the pump. There is concern that I could be in this group. I need to be in the 75% of people who can connect before they will proceed with this course of action. To double check, I will be undergoing more tests and a CT scan. I will also meet with Dr. Calvin Law and the pump assessment team to see if I am a candidate for this therapy. They plan to move on this right away. They will keep me on FOLFOX as all this research proceeds. I did ask Dr. Law what happens if I am part of the 25% group, which would be just my luck. He did not want to speculate. This is Plan A. There is no Plan B unless I need one. I also asked how much debate the panel had to do about my options to proceed. He stated that the team was quickly on board with the course of action described and that most of the conversation was centered around whether or not they could tell if my artery was viable given the current scans. The group was split on that point, so they have called for further examination of my liver. Dr. Calvin planned to submit the paperwork late Wednesday night. He then promised to attend the meeting with the pump assessment team with me, our third date. I felt better. I need this to work. I was to hear more about my schedule and test dates on Friday, but neither the Sunnybrook team or SouthLake team responded. I will take this weekend to rally and face the next steps on Monday. I am frankly terrified that my liver is so diseased. This journey is one thing as a young woman, it is a completely different thing as a mother to young children. Thank you friends for making my birthday so special. It was the positive balance and love I needed in a hard week. I love you all for being here with me. You mean more than you could possibly know. Much love, xoxox Christy Giselle Delmas Carmen Austrup Eryn Corriveau Jeanne Rah Steve Goldberg Adrienne Levy Vij Singh
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 15:21:44 +0000