It's been five months since Marye started her current run on chemotherapy. I posted a few months ago that with cancer, no news is generally good news. Well, today I have some news. Recently, we've seen the tumor stop shrinking from the chemo. Dr. Riley tried to reassure us that it's not necessarily a bad thing; it could be just a plateau period for the tumor. I wasn't so confident. This week, we got the results of the CT and bone scans.
The main lesion went from 4.6 cm to 6.2 cm, and there are about 15 new lesions in the liver, measuring as much as 2 cm across. Also, the bone scan showed some evidence of metastasis in her spine. So, that's pretty disheartening, although I'm not sure what it all means, yet. We're meeting with Dr. Riley on Thursday to find out what the next step is. She already told us that she's stopping the Taxol (since it's obviously no longer effective), and will be giving her a different chemo drug that comes in a pill form. She also mentioned a shot (not an infusion) for the bone issues. I'm thinking she's going with Fosamax, but again, I won't know until Thursday. Dr. Riley did say that the pill she's going with has shown to be pretty effective. I'm hoping that the side-effects are mild. Maybe Marye will actually grow her hair back.
In the meantime, we are both still processing this, and there are a lot of unanswered questions. But to me, it feels like we've entered a new phase in this adventure. I'll post again on Thursday or Friday after we see the oncologist. Expect to see some more frequent updates posted here in the coming weeks/months.
