So, I imagine a lot of you are wondering how I am doing, and how successful the Macrobead Clinical Trial is going. I'll start with the Macrobeads.
Yesterday I had my 30-day post-procedure appointment, which only consisted of having blood drawn for tumor marker tests, and being examined by a doctor. I am still awaiting results. The first post-op testing I had done was July 1st. Those initial results showed that the CEA did go up to 111, which represents a smaller percentage increase than we were seeing before the surgery, and may be due to inflammation the beads can cause. So the fact that the rate of increase of tumor markers has slowed is encouraging, but the doctor says it takes a couple of months to know for sure if the beads are working.
As for how I’m feeling, I am still experiencing the pain that I had before the surgery. As I may have mentioned before, we believe it is caused by tumor, so we are not surprised that we have not seen any change yet. I am seeing a doctor that is a pain specialist who is treating me with some pretty heavy-duty medications, which are helping to keep the pain at bay. I take long-lasting pain meds twice a day, plus throughout the day, I take pain meds for "break through" pain (when the long lasting meds wear off and the pain starts up, but it is not yet time to take another dose).
I am also taking Ambien CR to help me sleep through the night, which usually helps, but sometimes the pain wakes me up, and I have to take another dose of the "breakthrough" pain meds. At night, I also take an Anti-anxiety drug, which also helps target the pain. The problem with taking all these pain meds is that I am usually sleepy throughout the day. It is not unusual for me to go back to bed to take a nap about 10 AM. The doc gave me some medication to help me stay awake, but I think that drug is causing "dry mouth" which becomes very annoying. I have tried not taking that drug for a few days to see if that is in fact causing the dry mouth, and I'm pretty sure it is.
The pain doc said the first goal is to get the pain under control, then we work on countering the side effects of the narcotics. Hopefully that won't be too far down the road...
So overall, things are going OK, but all that pill-popping serves as a constant reminder that the cancer battle continues.
