3 down, 5 to go

I did my third chemo treatment today. Right now, everything is pretty a-okay. But it remains to be seen how it will all unfold. Last round my biggest problem was insomnia and getting kind of cranky after a good long time of no real deep sleep. One good thing about being in this drug study is I see the doctor and a nurse the day before each chemo treatment and we talk about how the last round was and what needs to be different. They are pretty attentive and things get adjusted and improved as we go. So, now we are going to see if we can’t get some sleep happening for me. That would be pretty great, I’d like that.

While we were meeting with them, we got some test results from last time.
All my blood work is coming back with good results.
My red blood cells and my white blood cells and my platelets are all on the low end of the normal range so that’s good.
But the thing that is really super exciting is the thing they call CA 125
CA 125 is a tumour marker test.
Basically, it is an indicator of cancer in your body, and it is as close to a test for ovarian cancer as they have right now. (But there is no test and it isn’t accurate enough to be used as as test, but it is as good as it gets for right now.)
So, if you, gentle cancer-free reader, had the CA 125 test today, your score would likely come in at around 20 or less.
When they tested me before my surgery, my test results were around 150 (and I have heard of lots of people having way higher numbers than that, so I was lucky.)
After my surgery but before my first chemo my scores came back at around 65.
After one or two rounds of chemo (I’m not completely sure which blood test they were using when they gave me the results) my CA 125 count is 8.6
That’s really fucking good.
I can’t express how uplifting that is.
And yeah, we aren’t out of the woods yet, but it’s really good to know that things are working and we are moving in the right direction.
Some people don’t respond at all to the chemo drugs so they go thru this basically brutal process and get no good out of it and then they have to go start with some other combination of chemo drugs and hope that they work. I am happy to report that isn’t happening with me, and things are looking really good!
And I completely expect that those numbers will fluctuate a bit, but as long as that fluctuation stays within a reasonable range, that will be okay.
I confess, there was a lot of gleeful bouncing up and down as we came home from that appointment.

So, there you have it. Some good news.

And, a big thanks to all the folks who came by and visited with us on Sunday. It was a really nice day with some really nice people hanging out. Thanks.

Hope you are all having a lovely summer.