No News - Not Always Good News...

I apologize for our regular readers for not posting regularly. Here we are 3 weeks into April and only our 3rd post! I've not been inspired to write lately as Melinda's latest PET scan results were less than impressive. And the oncologist visit was uninspired. After getting Melinda's vitals and report on how she was doing, she informed us there continue to be more tumors and increased activity. But for the first time she added that "You've had a good run", and that she "has done better than most". When she said that I really hated her - and that is my fault. We've always been impressed with her matter-of-fact attitude and blunt opinions, but after 2.5 years of optimism and hopefulness, the sudden turn made me angry. For the first time she didn't have an option for us - no rabbit-out-of-the-hat chemo drug for us to try. She needed to consult with her pharmacist to get an option. She asked twice if we had any travel plans, as if to imply that maybe we should be making some... And for the first time we walked out of the cancer center (always lower case) without knowing when we would be back. And besides the small-cell lung cancer to worry about, her dominant issue lately has been her increasing back pain. After a compressed vertebra a sixteen months back and steroid shots a year ago, she's been pain free, but it got so bad she had more injections last week, but they have had little effect on her pain.

A couple days later and we got the new regimen. An oral chemo pill called Temozolomide, generally used for brain cancers, now for some reason to be used on her small-cell... For the first time no need to go to the cancer center other than labs and doctor visits. At least it is nice to have a plan, but it is sort of sad to go thru chemo without seeing all our nurse friends we've come to love over the years to administer IV drugs. That has been about the best part of cancer center visits other than the hope something good was being accomplished. Now we'll miss our friends and the hope is starting to fade too...