Changing directions

This week was tentatively scheduled for a chemo session, however it was loosely based on what the CA125 count was going to be from her bloodwork counts. A couple of weeks ago her CA125 count was down to 360, however in a week's time it jumped back up to over 400.

She didn't feel well at all last week, and finally decided to go to the Emergency Room on Saturday to see if anything major was wrong. All said and done after tests and Xrays, she had a bladder/urinary tract infection. The doctor gave her a prescription of Levaquin (SP?) ((an antibiotic)) to get rid of it.

Today at her appointment, Dr. Porubcin reviewed all of the bloodwork over the last couple of weeks, and said that he wasn't seeing the results he wanted with the Topetecan. Since the CA125 number jumped up so much during the break week, he felt that she should try some other courses of treatment and stop the Topetecan.

So she has a new plan. They didn't give her a Topetecan treatment today. She will start treatment with 40 mg of Doxil next week (Tuesday), and then she will have three weeks off, and then will get another Doxil treatment on March 1. The treatment will take about two hours.

The nurses did some blood work today and will check the CA125 count again. They also did an echo cardiogram to check her heart muscle. Apparently one of the Doxil side effects has to do with the heart muscle tissue, and if the tissue is weak in any way then she won't be able to take the treatment. Other side effects have to do with losing her hair (again), and keeping her skin out of the sun as much as possible. I'm going to read up a little tonight after my meeting - seems like Doxil side effects are more intense than the Topetecan. THE GOOD NEWS IS that Dr. Porubcin said that Doxil doesn't have a reputation for causing blood clots (Yay) so if that's the silver lining I'll take it. Nothing is worse than blood clots.

When mom had her Xray done on Saturday, it showed no signs of blood clots in her lungs, so I'm hoping they are all gone.

Another bit of humor in the situation: when we were in the waiting room before mom went in to get the echo-cardiogram, we were watching tv and a commercial pops up with a big warning sign: IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW HAS TAKEN LEVAQUIN AND HAS TENDON PROBLEMS, CALL THIS NUMBER IMMEDIATELY AND SPEAK TO ONE OF OUR ATTORNEYS... etc. Of all the things to come up on the television while we were in the waiting room, it had to be about the antibiotic she's taking for her urinary tract infection. At least we both had a good chuckle.