PET (scan) Sounds

Prior to Karen's fourth round of chemo this morning, we got the results of last week's PET scan. The results were mixed. On the one hand, the none of her tumors showed any growth. In fact, a number of them had actually reduced in size. Arresting and/or reversing tumor growth is basically the whole point of this exercise so that was pretty nice to hear.

One one hand, and on the other hand....

Then again...there's that pesky 'other hand.' So, on that other hand, the PET scan revealed that the activity rate of several of the various cancer sites had increased a great deal. So while they aren't producing new cancer cells they are furiously at work trying to. This is the not so fantastic part of the results. Especially when you look back at the great response Karen enjoyed from the crizotinib which not only shrunk her tumors but shut those cancer factories the fuck down.

Mixed results like this are pretty standard so we can't really mewl about it too much. If we're going to do that sort of thing, we should really focus that energy on how terribly chemo went today. Karen was absolutely poleaxed by nausea and intense abdominal cramping during her infusion. After unplugging her IV for the fourth time so she could wheel the thing into the bathroom while she vomited, we opted to stop plugging it in and let the battery carry the load for the last few bags of drugs. The plug for the thing was awkwardly located behind her chemo recliner and it was just a pain to get it back in while tiptoeing over her IV lines and all. Happily, we were in the chair right next to the bathroom--not because we had some kind of foresight but because my antisocial tendencies had me homing in on it since it was the furthest away from the other patients.

Karen has spent the rest of today in bed, sleeping most of the time. That said, she did muster the energy to watch the latest episode of True Detective with me. We watched on the TV in our bedroom since she didn't want to walk into the living room to watch on the big TV, partly because of the peripheral neuropathy she's developed over the last few weeks. The neuropathy is a clear side effect of the chemo and it is essentially nerve damage that is occurring in her hands and feet. Her hands get achy but it's her feet that are the real problem. If she's off her feet, they itch like crazy and no amount of scratching helps. If you, like me, have had to wear a cast for a broken bone and had an itch just out of the reach of a bent up wire hanger, you know what that's like. Walking is worse. With shoes on, her feet hurt some but she can get around. But shoes make her feet even itchier. Barefoot, the pain when she walks is much more intense and she is the embodiment of wobbly, clutching onto chair backs, counter tops, walls, and the people around her to move around the house. It's like having a toddler in the house all over again.