I'm about a week late on this post, it's been a busy week!
First up, about those scans- Sheree had a full set of MRIs last week. Brain, cervical, thoracic and lumbar were taken, and over all the results are.... BETTER! Dr. Conrad (NeuroOnc) said that the disease isn't retreating as quickly as he'd hoped, but that things are trending in the right direction. Dr. Conrad thinks the disease has only been kicking around in there for a few months, but it was aggressive and there was a lot of it, so he's not surprised that it's taking a while to back down.
Below, you'll find a picture of her lumbar spine. November 30th is on the left, February 1st is on the right.
Her spinal cord is less inflamed, and you can start to see some individual nerves (as Dr. Conrad explained, on tail end of the cord in the picture on the right). So the treatment is working, and for now, Sheree will continue with more of the same- twice weekly intrathecal injections of Topotecan. Aside from some pretty intense nausea and her tastebuds not functioning properly, she hasn't experienced too many annoying side effects from this treatment.
Here are some other images, although I can't really explain what you're seeing. The bits of cancer are tiny, and only someone with 2 mortgages worth of education can read them. But they look neat. Basically, you can see how it's possible to have brain cancer, with no obvious tumor.
Sheree's cancer is of the meninges and it circulates in her spinal fluid. The stuff on her spine and brain are like tiny gold deposits in water- they collect in the crevices and hang out there. Only they're not sparkly and worth thousands. They're probably the color of monsters and they cost a lot of money. Thank goodness for Medicaid.
The cancer is composed of her original breast cancer cells. All it takes is one straggler, apparently. Something they didn't manage to catch with a double mastectomy, radiation and chemo back in 2009. Too bad cancer fighting robots haven't been FDA approved yet.
Despite this, her oncology team feels confident that they can get a good handle on it to give her much more time than the research indicates. This is a good time to remind you all that without a little luck and everyone's incredible amount of help, we may not have gotten treatment fast enough to prevent permanent damage.
Next, the systemic chemo. Sheree has been on the Ibrance + Letrozole combo for 3 weeks now. The most frequent clinical side effect is a drop in white blood cell counts (impaired immune system). Luckily, her white counts looked great at the last blood draw. WINNING! So far.
Letrozole is an aromatase inhibitor (AI) that essentially blocks estrogen production. She was on Arimidex, another AI during her original bout with breast cancer, and it made her achy and severely depressed. Really, the depression was crippling. Unfortunately, she's already seeing a bit of the same with Letrozole. I currently have her tracking her moods to find times where she feels good so that we can try to replicate the influencing factors for those days/hours. In the mean time, encouraging words and time with friends are things we know help. Mom is getting a crash course in self-care.
We have an appointment with Dr. Patt tomorrow, where we'll talk about how to handle this. I've done enough research to know that this is a very common side effect for some, so hopefully the doc will have some assistance.
Other than that, things are business as usual. I'm trying to find a volunteer opportunity for Sheree, because sometimes having something to think about besides fighting cancer might be a nice distraction. If anyone has any good ideas, send 'em my way? Maybe once a week, flexible, social. Something like that.
Thanks for checking in!
Love,
Kelly
