Stopping chemo

Sorry it's been so long and I didn't post since surgery. There's been a lot since then. I started back on chemo on March 12. Then I had a round on 3/26 and again on 4/9. Those were rounds 1, 2, and 3 post surgery. This past round also happened to be my 17th total chemo. These rounds were not great. 

5 days into round 2, I woke up with body aches and a headache but no other symptoms and they subsided after a day. 5 days into round 3, I woke up with full body aches, a headache, chills, and a fever. I went to the Roswell Treatment Center. They took 7 vials and 4 bottles of blood, did an EKG and a Chest X-Ray, did a nasal swab to test for 18 different respiratory viruses, and monitored my heart while I was there because my heart rate remained high. In the end, everything came back clear. Everything, body aches, fever, chills, all of it was due to inflammation from the treatment. 

I went back to the research studies I had pulled about surgery and treatment for Colorectal Cancer with a lung metastasis. I scoured back through 12 studies and focused on overall survival and disease free survival at 5 years. I also focused on prognostic factors to see where I stood overall. Then I listed the treatment problems and made a plan. 

I learned that with or without chemo, post-surgery for a lung metastasis, I have about a 30% (not an exact average of the studies, just a ballpark number) of a 5 year disease free survival. While I'm really hoping that I'm in that group, it's significantly more likely that the cancer will recur. There's nothing to show the difference between 3 rounds post-surgery and 6 rounds post-surgery and regardless, I'll never really know if it would make a difference there.

Beyond the research, looking at scans and all the information I have so far, I realized that my lung tumor was held at bay by the chemo but the chemo was not getting rid of it. I am hoping that the chemo destroyed anything small that wanted to grow into something big and anything else that could be floating around my body but I'll never know and can only hope.

I won't bother putting up my notes with Overall Survival and Disease free survival because I'd really need to include much more information because the studies vary in age and scope. I can note some of my positive factors.

Positive factors

• Clear Pet Scan
• Clear ctDNA
• Original tumor still gone
• Single Metastasis
• Normal CEA pre-chemo & surgery
• No other known spread prior or current
• Pulmonary Metastasis - no lymph node involvement
• Pulmonary Metastasis fully removed
• Relatively small lung tumor
• Suffusion during surgery

Negative factors

• Short disease-free interval
• Female
• Rectal tumor (more likely to come back than colon tumor)
• Age @ diagnosis - too young or too old are more likely to have recurrance
• Rectal tumor did involve lymph nodes

Treatment problems

• vasospasms
• fever, chills, body aches
• dehydration
• trouble swallowing pills
• nausea
• heartburn
• inflammation
• neuropathy (pins and needles weren't too bad, couldn't eat/drink cold things)
• constipation
• less exercise
• more weight gain

So, now what? Now, we look forward. Since inflammation can be a big factor in the development of tumors, especially GI tract adenocarcinomas, I work on removing foods that cause inflammation from my diet and adding some new small anti-inflammatory type things, like a little fresh ginger in my smoothies. I work on getting my body healthier so it is better able to fight the cancer and so that if it does recur, my body is as healthy as possible for surgery and/or chemo, whatever I need at that time. 

I'm not done fighting, not even close. I have no problems getting chemo in the future but right now, the toll it is taking on my body doesn't seem to be balanced out by it's possible benefits. And if I had been healthier and had more of a break between chemos to get my body back to healthy, I do think my symptoms would not be as bad as they are and I think my body would have tolerated the chemo better.

Additionally, I will go in relatively frequently for bloodwork and scans and probably still be at Roswell every other month between all the doctors I see and I will have multiple scans per year to make sure we catch it fast if the cancer recurs.