6/28/16 - Bad News

From Jan:

I'm not sure how to even start the blog post or what to say.  There isn't a way to write it with a positive spin.  It's just bad news.

So the CT scan showed that some of the tumors have shrunk, but others have grown.  This means that the chemo isn't working.  Furthermore, there are masses that are an advanced type called Metastatic disease that puts me in a more advanced stage of cancer.

When you get news like this, you are in shock and can't think of the questions you should ask. The oncologist was visibly upset about having to deliver such bad news. She said we are no longer hoping for a cure.  Our only recourse is to put me on a more aggressive chemo that will make me very sick and to schedule me for a bone marrow transplant.  She wanted me to go home and give it some thought because either way it's a death sentence. 

My mother died after her bone marrow transplant and it was a horrible process that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.  But my doctor said I had a 90% chance of surviving it.  However there wouldn't be a chance that it would cure me. Just a 50% chance that it would put me in a temporary partial remission.  Most people only go through a bone marrow transplant in hopes for a cure, so I am asking myself if it really is worth going through something so drastic with the only hope of a partial remission that won't last, and a 50% chance it won't work.

Right now we are waiting for the transplant team at LDS hospital to meet and discuss which chemo they want to switch me to. One kind would require me to be admitted to the hospital.  The other would have me going for outpatient chemo 5 days every other week. Both will make me very sick.  But the doctor has hopes that it would shrink the new stronger tumors. 

I can't make a decision about not having the bone marrow transplant without more info, so I'll have to meet with their team.  Just thinking about it upsets me.  I also want to know how long I have if I don't opt to do the bone marrow transplant and what I could expect as far as pain, etc with that decision. 

My son Chase is staying with me now until Thursday when my daughter Jessa will come.  So I'm not alone. The new tumors are already causing me pain, so I need to figure out what course of action I'm going to take. Right now I'm leaning towards just chemo and no transplant. We'll see what I decide later after I meet with the bone marrow transplant team.

Your prayers would be appreciated. Thank you.