Thursday, June 20, 2013

Up and down, up and down

Mom's CA125 count went down slightly again by a couple of points. I think that is going to be the norm... up a little one month, down a little the next, then up a little again. I guess as long as there are no large fluctuations all Dr. Porubcin will want to do is monitor her blood counts.

Mom may have to go in and do an iron infusion again at some point. She has been having some issues in the last couple of weeks with bruising and such. They can't pinpoint anything and aren't going to reduce her Lovenox dosage (because if they reduce that she will surely get a clot somewhere).

On another note I receive a lot of information from the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, and on their web site is a summary of studies presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual conference. http://www.ovariancancer.org/report-from-asco-2013-new-research-on-ovarian-cancer/

Of note is the section on sub-types of Ovarian Cancer. Even though two people in our family have Ovarian Cancer, both are different in terms of how they grew and the treatments prescribed. Mom's cancer was very undetectable and never got to the mass stage... the surgeon in Iowa City described it as "fine filaments" which were set up like a web in mom's abdomen. Cousin Heather had a mass about the size of an orange on her ovary which is what triggered symptoms eventually. The only similarity was that both women were at Stage 3. Some of the studies allude to specific genomes and specific cancers, but since mom's genetic test came back with the variant on BRCA2, there isn't anything conclusive in regards to variants. I'm hoping that with the recent court ruling that eliminated the BRCA gene patents maybe some more studies can come out on the variants.

So overall it looks like the summer is going to be a cancer-hassle-free season for mom! Maybe a short trip is on the agenda - there is a new baby in the family again (congrats Demara and Greg!) so mom may feel like hitting the road.

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