This showed up in my mailbox yesterday! It’s been on my Amazon wishlist forever but someone just up and ordered it for me! But it doesn’t say who it’s from! In fact, it says that I ordered it. I didn’t do it…I don’t think I did anyway. Maybe I need to go recount this week’s ration of pain meds! LOL

If you sent this to me would you please fess up so I can thank you properly? Thank you. Properly. Hehe

Tough day we had here at Chez Honey. The meeting with the doctor today was quite draining for me today, I had to come straight home and take a three hour nap (which I never do). Feeling much more together now and ready to write this post.

We learned all about Chemoembolization today. You can click on that word back there to see the exact handout the doctor gave us on the procedure. The long and short of it is, while under conscious sedation, they (I’ll be the one under sedation, not them! LOL) will insert tubes and such through a place on the inside of my hip area. Using a fluoroscope, the doc will thread wires into the blood vessels that feed into the tumor on my liver. Then he will inject a certain amount of a chemotherapy cocktail directly into those blood vessels and then use “particles” to cap it off - sort of like sticking a cork in a bottle. That will preserve the chemotherapy to remain IN the tumor as long as possible. Within this procedure, they will also use a unique contrasting solution that will go into all healthy and non-healthy parts to which those blood vessels feed. Eventually, it will drain out but it will remain in the non-healthy tumor part only. Basically, it will remain in there and serve as a long term contrasting material so that we can more clearly see the actual tumor parts on future CT or MRI scans. The doc needs this contrast to do his job in there and it’s just an added bonus that it’ll stay put and work more for me in the future!

How often is this chemo administered? So it’s pretty much a one-time shot, in the sense that the chemo is only administered during the embolization procedure. Then we wait about 6 weeks and then do another CT scan to assess. If it hasn’t done what we want it to do then we get to decide to either A) do it again or B) try something else.

Can I do both systemic and regional chemo at the same time? The doctor (his name is Gupta so from here on out, that’s what I’ll refer to him as) was going to chat with Dr. Kane this afternoon and get her opinion about doing both the embolization and systemic chemo at the same time. It was his opinion that I not do both for fear of overloading the liver with too many toxins at one time - putting me at even higher risk of infection and harder to get over. We agreed. So at this point, we’re not planning on doing both, only the embolization and then checking (MORE WAITING!) it 6 weeks later. That means, Uncle Marv and Frank, that the phase one study is more than likely off the table for the time being. There are always more studies being conducted at the University hospital so later on down the road, should we choose that option, it will still be available - more than likely it would be a different combination of study drugs but the study option will still be there for us. Right now we are more interested in investing our time and efforts in regimen that have already given positive results, which chemoembolization has (not on my particular type of tumor, though, because it’s so terribly rare but it has on other types of liver cancers).

What are the side effects of chemoembolizaton? Dr. Gupta described what sounded to me like your basic run of the mill flu symptoms: aches, fatigue, slight fever, loss of appetite, etc that may last about 2 weeks. So, either flu-like or chemo-like symptoms. And I should not be losing my hair ——STILL!

When will I have this done? Well, Dr. Gupta wants me chemo-free (because of the blood clotting issues associated with the chemo) for about 4 weeks before doing the procedure. This Friday will be two weeks chemo-free so we’ll probably fore go this week’s scheduled chemo and just hold out for another couple of weeks (MORE WAITING!) to do the procedure - for which I will stay overnight in the hospital for observation and pain control.

Guess what all that means?!?!? I’ve decided that since I have to wait two more weeks before the surgery and I will be more than two weeks past chemo, I’m thinking I’d like to go on a mini-vacation with Honey between now and then!!! Now we want to go to Santa Fe since it’s closer and easier to get to and from than Hilton Head would be. Plus we can take the dogs with us!

Chemoembolization scheduled for Monday the 17th.

Sorry for no post yesterday. I just couldn’t think of anything to write about. Everything’s fine. No need to worry about me.

We’re headed to the hospital this morning to meet with the Interventional Radiologist to inquire about the chemo embolization. I will post information we learn upon our return. Stay tuned…