Good news & bad news
I had a blood test this week. The good news is the bilirubin levels are down. This means my liver tumours are shrinking. They won't be eliminated.. they'll come back and grow again at some point.
This is very good news, because the liver tumours have a much greater effect on me than the bone ones. I haven't had the bone tumours tested since December, but since the overall tumour load is much reduced they're probably also shrinking.
Lord Xeloda is on my side still.. riding alongside with his sword, defending me. *chuckles*
Well, it's a nice image. Dr D said that he knows of people with liver mets who've been on Xeloda for years, one for 7 years. I do know that is the exception, but I appreciate him trying to give me hope.
Also good is the white blood cell count which is in the normal range, meaning I'm not in that "vulnerable to infection" mode I was earlier.
On the bad news front, we have waaaaaaaaaaay high cholesterol, like 9.5. It's meant to be 5.5 and at 6.5 they start to medicate you. But my doctor said, don't worry, it's not a real reading, it's pushed up by your cancer. Um. Ok. I'm not sure whether that's really okay or not.
And on the very bad news front, last week I was troubled by the amount of water I was drinking, and then by the fact that I drank two litres of chinotto in half an hour and craved more, and by the fact that I lost six kilos in a week or so. I rang Dr D, whose registrar was on duty since he was away. Dr B checked my blood sugar level and found it was way high. Sent me straight over to the diabetic clinic where they shot me up with insulin, declared me a diabetic.
I was assigned to a registrar there too, but she was not to my liking at all, not one bit. She is a dour, unpleasant person. She treated me as a case, could not remember my name after two hours spent with me, and didn't believe one thing I said. She took my blood pressure four times because she couldn't believe it was totally normal. Didn't believe me when I said I have never smoked. "What, never?" "No, Never." I knew better than to say i was never ever sick at sea, lol. (Gilbert and Sullivan reference would be lost on a person with no sense of humour).
The diabetes news is crap, with all the blood sugar testing and insulin injecting and so forth but within a few days I found my energy levels rising dramatically. It seems some of the fatigue I've had lately is down to the diabetes. So, that's a good thing. I feel fatigued still but not as bad, I can actually do more than one thing in a day without feeling wiped.
I've also decided to reassess my expected lifespan. On two grounds. First,, the Xeloda's spectacular results, and the fact that many people do get a long time on this drug. And second, some more recent stats out of the US's premier cancer centre, MD Anderson. They are still not differentiated between bone mets only and liver mets, but they count people who started treatment much more recently. Since the new treatments are so much better, I feel justified in looking at those. They have a median survival of 33 months to 51 months, compared to 18-24 previously.
I put myself at the lower end of that because I do have liver mets. But that's nearly a year more than before.
And that's a year more than my income protection insurance.. so I will have to work again. I need to figure out what work to do that will pay enough but not require me to go into an office with office hours, so i can rest when I need to. Guess I'll face that when the time comes. If it does.
This is very good news, because the liver tumours have a much greater effect on me than the bone ones. I haven't had the bone tumours tested since December, but since the overall tumour load is much reduced they're probably also shrinking.
Lord Xeloda is on my side still.. riding alongside with his sword, defending me. *chuckles*
Well, it's a nice image. Dr D said that he knows of people with liver mets who've been on Xeloda for years, one for 7 years. I do know that is the exception, but I appreciate him trying to give me hope.
Also good is the white blood cell count which is in the normal range, meaning I'm not in that "vulnerable to infection" mode I was earlier.
On the bad news front, we have waaaaaaaaaaay high cholesterol, like 9.5. It's meant to be 5.5 and at 6.5 they start to medicate you. But my doctor said, don't worry, it's not a real reading, it's pushed up by your cancer. Um. Ok. I'm not sure whether that's really okay or not.
And on the very bad news front, last week I was troubled by the amount of water I was drinking, and then by the fact that I drank two litres of chinotto in half an hour and craved more, and by the fact that I lost six kilos in a week or so. I rang Dr D, whose registrar was on duty since he was away. Dr B checked my blood sugar level and found it was way high. Sent me straight over to the diabetic clinic where they shot me up with insulin, declared me a diabetic.
I was assigned to a registrar there too, but she was not to my liking at all, not one bit. She is a dour, unpleasant person. She treated me as a case, could not remember my name after two hours spent with me, and didn't believe one thing I said. She took my blood pressure four times because she couldn't believe it was totally normal. Didn't believe me when I said I have never smoked. "What, never?" "No, Never." I knew better than to say i was never ever sick at sea, lol. (Gilbert and Sullivan reference would be lost on a person with no sense of humour).
The diabetes news is crap, with all the blood sugar testing and insulin injecting and so forth but within a few days I found my energy levels rising dramatically. It seems some of the fatigue I've had lately is down to the diabetes. So, that's a good thing. I feel fatigued still but not as bad, I can actually do more than one thing in a day without feeling wiped.
I've also decided to reassess my expected lifespan. On two grounds. First,, the Xeloda's spectacular results, and the fact that many people do get a long time on this drug. And second, some more recent stats out of the US's premier cancer centre, MD Anderson. They are still not differentiated between bone mets only and liver mets, but they count people who started treatment much more recently. Since the new treatments are so much better, I feel justified in looking at those. They have a median survival of 33 months to 51 months, compared to 18-24 previously.
I put myself at the lower end of that because I do have liver mets. But that's nearly a year more than before.
And that's a year more than my income protection insurance.. so I will have to work again. I need to figure out what work to do that will pay enough but not require me to go into an office with office hours, so i can rest when I need to. Guess I'll face that when the time comes. If it does.