DAY TEN Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month - Check in w/ oncologist

A couple of weeks ago mom had her usual check-in with Dr. Porubcin. Overall she has been feeling well and we were both surprised to find out that her CA125 count went down slightly (50's). Mom had been having a few intestinal issues but nothing serious. Dr. Porubcin decided to run another CA125 test and also do a torso scan to check on her lymph nodes to see if there were any changes.

So today she had another appointment to go over the results - the CA125 was up to 66 and the scan showed that her lymph nodes behind her stomach were enlarged. That was enough information for Dr. Porubcin to start looking at doing another round of chemo.

Mom and I knew that she would have to do more chemo at some point in time, but when the time does come it just reminds you that the disease is the one in charge. That stinks. 

After some discussion and looking at the pros and cons of continuing with the Doxil, Dr. Porubcin decided that this time it would be best to do a course of what I call the "hard-core" stuff: Carbo and taxol. After mom was first diagnosed in 2009, that is what Dr. Porubcin prescribed to pretty much attack the cancer and knock it back enough to keep it from spreading into more areas. The good thing is that approach definitely worked. But it also knocked the stuffing out of mom and that is the bad thing. 

Dr. P decided that he wanted to hold off on the Doxil as mom was nearing that threshold. If he gives her more rounds of Doxil and she goes over that threshold, it could do some hard damage to her heart tissue. Last wee she went for an EKG and the report showed that her heart is in good condition with not a lot of damage so Dr. wants to keep it that way.

She starts next week (Wednesday the 16th) and will do two weeks in a row, take a week off, and then do two more weeks. Dr. Porubcin will closely watch how she is handling the drugs and keep track of her counts to see how long she will continue with the regimen. 

With the Carbo/taxol mix, Mom will have some harsh side effects like before (lose hair, nerve tingling in hands, fatigue). I don't like the thought of that - however if this approach knocks her cancer back and reduces the lymph node size back down and gets rid of some of her other symptoms, then that is a good thing.