Another Round Completed

I had treatment number 16 on Tuesday and it went just fine, though I am very happy to have a two week break. I am wiped out after this latest round and I hope to catch my breath and give my skin a chance to heal over the next few weeks. Right now it’s just a matter of very dry skin, the irritating rash on my neck, chest and back, and cracked skin on my heels and fingers. All quite tolerable, but I’d prefer not to be dealing with any of it.

I also had my 8 week follow up with Dr. Lange. It was a good thing Pat was there, because they decided to start my treatment before I saw him, so I had already had my benadryl when we sat down to talk and it was a struggle to keep my eyes open. As expected my CT scan was clean once again. There was no dancing or celebrating as we both know that this doesn’t mean a whole lot at this point. However, it does mean that I will continue with the Erbitux for another 8 weeks. We may skip the CT scan at the end of the next round, but that won’t be decided until week 6 of the next round. I think we talked a bit about my diarrhea and what else can be done to slow it down. I agreed to try drinking a glucose solution which is usually administered via IV – though it’s still sitting in the fridge and I’m not too anxious to try it. We also were able to track down coke syrup for me to try. Dr. Lange thinks the extra sugar from these products will absorb the excess water in my system and slow down the diarrhea. I am also supposed to still be on the Sandostatin. Notice I said “supposed to be” - once again the mail order pharmacy has messed up. They sent the wrong approval form to my doctor’s office not once, but 4 times. Finally got things straightened out yesterday, so the medicine should have shipped. I’ll find out today if it did. I’ve been off of it for 2 days now and since it’s a cumulative effective, I may have to start all over if it doesn’t arrive today. Oh joy! 28 more needle sticks to get this stuff to work. At least we finally figured out how to give the injection without leaving a bruise.

We did just return from a brief but fun trip to New Mexico. Met up with my parents in Santa Fe and did lots of exploring. Its beautiful country and we ate lots and lots of excellent Mexican food. We chose one restaurant because of its name (Café Pasquale’s) and its location (Don Gaspar) – then we had several locals recommend this same restaurant to us. Everyone was right – it was by far the best restaurant we ate in – twice, once for dinner and once for breakfast. I finally located their website www.pasquals.com. Anyone traveling to Santa Fe should definitely stop by for a meal.

I took lots of pictures and will try to post some later.