Another Jeff Day

   I realized last night that the steroids I take from the day before chemo to two days after will cause me to fail the required drug test and be disqualified from the Olympic Overnight Peeing Event.  I was a leading candidate to bring home a medal for the USA.
   The threat of 100 plus temperatures on Wed. and Thurs. reminded me of the highest temperature I ever experienced:  110 degrees in Fresno, California.  I had been working there in late May about 25 years ago; in the shade it felt like in the 70's.  That trip included my best day at "work."  I took a day off and made the two hour drive to Yosemite, which was pretty empty on a 70 plus degree day and quite a lot of fun.
   Today, to celebrate Linda's birthday, we had my lab tests, meeting with Littman, and chemo, the regular Piss-platin and Gemsar.  The meeting with Littman has caused us some worry.  Regarding the continual rise lately in my cancer marker, Lttiman said that, with pancreatic cancer, the cancer is usually heterogeneous, meaning that there are 2 different cancers involved.  While there are still innocuous possible reasons for the marker rise, another reason could be that the chemos have worked well on one of the cancers but that that has freed up the other cancer to grow.  If it's the latter, then the cancer cells in the bloodstream would be causing the rise in the marker.  You can't tell if the cells are sticking anywhere, but the CT and PT scans on June 25 should reveal more details on what's going on.  We have a meeting with Littman on June 28 to discuss the results which often take a day or two for her to get them.
   Littman mentioned two likely approaches for the next type of chemo treatment.  One is a drug developed by Jefferson's top researcher Brody, who is well-known outside of Jefferson.  The drug has worked well with BRCCA 2 patients but is in the pre-trial stage.  Littman is leaning to this drug, probably accompanied by a more traditional chemo.  The second approach, which we may do later, was developed at Georgetown and is called a PARP Inhibitor which repairs a gap between genes or chromosomes caused by the mutation and somehow then fights the cancer.
   We walked to and from Jefferson and stopped at Chinatown and the Reading Market on the way home, a total of about 3 miles carrying heavy bags on the trip home.  Linda was able to get her favorite spare ribs, so at least there was something positive on her birthday.  And for me, I don't have to get the Neulasta shot tomorrow as my white cell count was high.
   Prepare yourselves for the heat.

Elkan - Monday night




 


 cancer.