Hi All,
Today was scan day. This was the second set after beginning Sutent. Wow, it has been 27 weeks. Being the recipient of this doctoring stuff takes all day. You gotta retire to have time for it. I guess that I'm practicing retirement early. It seems like a long time between postings. I suppose that means that The Rotten Kidney is part of my normal routine now....you just roll with the punches.
I got up this morning, scheduled for blood work at 9:45, Injection for the bone scan at 10:00, CT scan at 10:00, wait a couple of hours, then bone scan at 12:45pm. Meet with Dr. Baltz at 1:00 pm for results. I asked about the quick turnaround between bone scan and meeting with Dr. Baltz, and the scheduler said...you know he's gonna be behind but it will keep you in the que. I could have gone to the plant for the wait time, but I'm weaning myself from that...so I went to get a haircut.....that explains the attached picture. graystinguished huh !
Everything went per schedule until after the bone scan. True to form, we finally saw Dr. Baltz about 3:00.
He came in with two thumbs up ! He didn't say miraculuous this time, but he is very encouraged and encouraging. He said "I've been doing this for 20 years, and at the moment I have about a dozen folks just like you that are doing very well." These drugs were not available until recently and he's making the best of them.
Results: bone scan is clear, brain scan is clear, abdoman is clear, lung mets are stable. Stable means they are not growing. He reminded us that we had tremendous reduction in the size of the lung mets in the first 3 months. He said he still wouldn't recommend biopsy of the mets and that either they were slowing down in response, or they may have shrunk all they could. I kinda like the sound of that. So we will continue on with the Sutent and scan again in 3 months.
I'll have the complete radiologists report tomorrow.
I was hoping for an all clear....darn.... because the most aggrevating thing is sore feet for about 3 or 4 days out of 21. It's not just kinda sore feet...it's " I can't walk on these " sore feet.
To me, chemo conjurs up images of burning veins at the time of treatment and then throwing up and feeling like hell for several days, then having to do it all over again....I think I can put up with some sore feet for a few days at a time. With the specter of "OOOOOO sore feet " I'll have to plan when I go play golf or something else..... tough huh? I think that I have it easy by comparison...so maybe that's why the doctors and nurses just kinda nod when I start talking about my SIDE EFFECTS. I'm a lucky man.
So there you have it.
We're doing well.... Life is good.
