Last blog entry took me up to where I finished my last clinical trial in December 2012. So, since then.......
Over the Christmas period I had, for the first time, a lot of issues with pain management. Prior to that all my symptoms for the past 4 years related to treatment, rather than the cancer itself. So we spent most of January getting the pain under control, finally settling on 20mg OxyContin morning and night. I have no idea whether this is a small or a large dose - but it worked.
Late January I commenced a new chemo routine - carbo and alimta. To date I have had 5 rounds, with occassional delays because of poor blood counts. The 5th round was meant to be Alimta only, but a multitude of errors last Friday meant I got carbo as well.
I am tolerating this chemo extremely well. No major side effects, with fatigue being the only real issue but I am on top of that now. No weight gain or loss, good energy, no nausea etc, just some annoying constipation, probably from the OxyContin. And I have reduced the day time dose of OxyContin to 10mg, and intend to reduce the night dose any day now.
I have had 2 scans during the period - the first showed stable, the second showed minor reduction. Dr West, from the Grace website, indicated that it was very unusual to get any shrinkage at all with a 5th line treatment.
And during the time I have also done 4 holidays - 9 days camping over Christmas, 5 days in wonderful Byron Bay, 6 days camping at the National Folk Festival in Canberra, and 5 days to central Australia, including one night on the Ghan. Truly wonderful times.
Gail
