Read All About It

Read All About It by Emeli Sande 

If you follow my blog, you know I often title my posts after a song. There are times when searching for a song title to fit the post, I am introduced to a song that really speaks to me. This is one of them. Take a listen; you won't regret it.

So ... what do I want you to read about? Tumor Markers!

The chemo queen (me) continues to rock it. My overall blood work is stellar, continuing to amaze the doctors. Then my latest tumor market test came back. Is it bad? NO! But it is moving again .... in the wrong direction. To be clear, only one of the three tumor markers is moving. 

But.... this is the guy that started all the angst in the first place this spring:

• CA 27-29 measurement
• Normal Range is 38.6
• Currently at 38.7
• Was at 25.4 in mid October, a difference of 13.3
• Was at 90.3 in June
• We changed meds and began to see a steady decline, finally within normal range the end of September - 32.2
• In case you forgot, I have a spreadsheet with all my bloodwork results over the past year.

Now, you are thinking to yourself, "GUURL! You're getting excited about .1 above normal? 🙄 SMH"

Yeah, yeah. I get it. But let's go back to the last PET results. Nothing got smaller, we found something new in the left lung that requires watching, yet the metabolic activity decreased in everything but the lung. That would indicate the cancer is dying. Whoop!! The overall write up says the tumors are stable. 

I was/am cautiously optimistic about those results, but stable, to me, is a signal that maybe my cancer is getting smart again. I told my husband I wouldn't be surprised if my treatment changed again at Christmas after my 12/18 PET. Sigh. Back to today's visit ...

The PA, Rachel, and I go over bloodwork, the usual questions about pain (no), side effects (no), I feel great! I told her I was concerned the tumor marker was on the move again. It turns out, Dr. Kocs is not happy the tumor marker is moving again either. No one is panicking at this point, but I go back in Thursday morning during my "off week" to have blood drawn to check tumor markers again, as I am at the end of this cycle. Rachel tells me there are times when this marker will go up one week and then two weeks later go back down. That hasn't been my experience, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.  

Why Thursday? So they can get the results back and call me before I go out of town. How sweet! I didn't even ask. My medical team really looks out for me. Stay tuned!