Drifting...

I am officially now in the "watch and wait" club.  I feel like I am a piece of driftwood....

The ocean tides have brought you in.
A stranger in a world of sand. Each grain unique among man.
The miles you may have traveled. The wonders you may have seen.
Stuck among the land. To wait, to watch, to wonder...
Will time erase you?
Will time return you to the sea?
Or steal you forever from me?

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Drifting is also: A driving technique where the driver intentionally or unintentionally oversteers, causing loss of traction in the rear wheels or all tires, while maintaining control from entry to exit of a corner. A car is drifting when the rear slip angle is greater than the front slip angle, to such an extent that often the front wheels are pointing in the opposite direction to the turn (e.g. car is turning left, wheels are pointed right or vice versa).



I first saw it in the movie "Fast and Furious 2 or it might have been "3". It looks pretty fun but I would never dare try it!

I wrote the above little "ditty" before my appointment with my Oncologist yesterday. I thought that I would feel more "adrift". That's not really what happened or how I now feel....

My appointment went well, I never know what to expect.  Last April he said that if my scan was good, he probably wouldn't need to see me but every six months. I wasn't sure how I felt about that but obviously, I felt like he was setting me adrift!  I feel better when I am actively seeking treatment.  Looking for a surgeon that would resect my liver tumors took about 6 months.  I was doing something. I was in motion.  Not "waiting".  Now I am waiting.  Waiting for that other shoe to drop.  I am trying not to think that way.  I want to move on.  Move forward...  an object in motion stays in motion.  Motion is a good thing--motion is life!  

We looked at my scan together trying to figure out how many tumors I really have. My scan reports have always said "over 20".  My liver resection took care of the biggest--about 7 tumors.  The new scan just say's "multiple".  There does look to be many but some are so small ( a few millimeters) that he's not sure if they are tumors or something else.  My biggest is now 1.2 centimeters, which is pretty small.  The good news, of course, is that they are not growing! I am considered "stable". Stable is good in Cancer-land. Not as good as "in remission" or "NED" (no evidence of disease) but I know that I will never be NED! 

He mentioned they are starting a clinical trial for one of the new VEG-F(?) class of drugs.  I didn't get the details.  He said they do like to see "progressive" disease and since I am stable, I don't feel like it would be worth it.  Why take the chance on bad, life altering side-effects when I could go years with stable disease?  I asked how long they would be doing it and he said probably a couple of years so it is something I can do down the road if I become "progressive".  I told him I am not opposed to doing a clinical trial though.  I also told him, again, about the PRRT trials starting up around the country.  This is something I probably could have gotten into had I not had surgery.  I even gave him the print-out from clinicaltrials.org website for him to keep.  He said he had a couple of patients who were really interested in doing it.  If you would like to read more about PRRT, a great website is: www.prrtinfo.org.

I did ask him about having MRI's instead of CAT Scans and he explained the difference in the results, time, etc. I think I'm sticking with CAT Scans for now.

My pancreastatin test is not back yet but I am expecting that it will be half again what it was last time. This is my third pancreastatin test (a more sensitive tumor marker test thant he CgA). The first one was over 600, second 300 so if it follows the trend of my CgA, it will be about 150. I think <100 is the normal range. We decided to keep doing my tumor markers every 3 months so I will meet with him again after that, however, that would be October and he is on-call that week so not in the office. (How nice that they don't have to come in when they are on-call.) My next appointment with him will be in November, which is fine with me! My scan should be in January but he said if my "markers" are good then I could push it back if I want. I'll wait and see but for now, I don't mind waiting. All-in-all it was a good appointment and I left feeling very positive.  My shot went well.  I had a "newbie".  I think it was her 1st Sando shot but she had supervision.  It hardly hurt so I told her she did a great job!  I'm a little sore today but just the usual tight feeling in my hip and leg.  

So I am a bit ADRIFT...  adrift in the sea of cancer.  I'm feeling good though.  Now we wait, we watch, we stay vigilant.