A Day at Penn

Actually, I started out at the dermatologist's office at 8:30 in the morning for my annual checkup (I've had a couple suspicious lesions removed in the past).  She gave me a sample lotion that she thought might help my hands and feet, which was nice, and she waived my copay!  Even nicer!  She also told me that the new brown spots on my face and elsewhere are pigment changes from the Xeloda.  Otherwise, all's well with my skin this year, no need for scraping.

Civia came with me to Penn for a lovely girls' day out -- waiting for me to return from a CT scan, waiting for Dr. Fox, waiting, waiting, waiting.  In the car, she squirted some of the dermatologist's lotion onto my hand, and when I rubbed it in it stuck there and turned to chalk.  In the meantime, she'd used it, too, so we both arrived in Philly with dry, chalk white hands.  Civia said it looked like we'd painted ourselves with Wite-Out.  Oh right, back to Penn.  We did get to go for lunch, but considering Mother Nature slapped her head and realized it's January in Philadelphia, we didn't go exploring the campus for a great lunch.  We stopped at Potbelly at Penn Tower, which was fine.  I had soup.  So. 

That stuff you have to drink for an abdominal CT scan is abominable.  It doesn't even have a name, it's just called that stuff (okay, pardon me, but "contrast" isn't a much better name).  My stomach is still killing me, and I finished that horrible liquid about 10 hours ago.  My laptop is resting on my lap, just below the gurgling of curses my poor, pissed off belly is hailing at me.

Dr. Fox came into the exam room, squeezed my shoulder in greeting as he entered, and sat down at the computer to log in.  He asked us to hang on a minute, and then he grunted at the screen.  He said something about having to change the language, and then grunted a bit more.  I got nervous, thinking he was upset with my test results or something.  Note to Dr. Fox:  don't grunt near paranoid cancer patients.  Finally he just moved us to the next exam room (my mother had appeared with us by this time).  The first computer was not cooperating.  Whew!

In the meantime, he did get an earful about how I was feeling, and learned that my extremities are worse rather than improved after decreasing my Xeloda dose.  He said my official CT scan results would not be available for a couple days, that I should call on Monday to hear the findings.  In the meantime, he could look at the pictures on the screen.  He scrolled through them, and though I could see, I couldn't tell what was good or not good.  He turned back to us and said my liver looks good.  Then he decided to show us, so he pulled up August's CT scan to help us compare.  In August the cancer was easy to see when he pointed it out, and it was pretty much all over.  Today's scan showed very little visible cancer, I had to strain to see anything out of the ordinary, honestly.

So.  Good news and bad news:  the chemo is killing the cancer, but it's also harming me.  But it's killing the cancer!  But I still can't eat.  But ... what a difference in the pictures!  But, ouch, my stomach!  Chemo, cancer, chemo, cancer.  Score for chemo, that's for sure.  Staying on it like this, though, is not an option.  Right now, I take 7 days on and 7 days off.  This is my off week.  Now I'm getting a second off week, to hopefully improve my side effects.  When I start again, I'll decrease again, from 6 pills a day to 5.  I hope this works!  If not, Dr. Fox says he'll just decrease by one more pill and try again.

My mom and Civia hugged me and looked thrilled about the good news.  I'm oddly ambivalent, and can't figure out why.  Do I no longer trust good news?  I have to get over that, if it's true.  After all, it's 2012!  Anything can happen.