As I mentioned in my last post, I put in a call to my doctor in New Orleans to get his take on my local oncologist's decision to take me off chemo. We were able to get an appointment for February 9 and headed down there on the 8th. They also wanted me to meet with the interventional radiologist to discuss some possible liver targeted therapies and we got that set up for February 14.
Coincidentally enough, Dashboard was playing their NOLA stop of the tour on February 13 at the House of Blues. So guess where we spent that Monday evening??
The appointment with Dr. Ramirez went fine. He agreed with me that it was a risk to be off of chemo, but also agreed with Dr. Philip that it was becoming increasingly toxic for my body and also that there was really no evidence at this point as to whether the chemo was keeping me stable vs. the tumors just being stable on their own. He also told us about some upcoming trials that I might want to look into for immunotherapy, but those are likely still quite a while before the trials get started.
The appointment with Dr. Gimenez of the interventional radiology department also went fine. He ended up not being able to actually make the appointment, but we met with his nurse practitioner and also conferenced him in on the phone. The process they are recommending is called Trans Arterial Chemo Embolization, or TACE. They explained the procedure to us, which would involve me having to come back down to NOLA and stay for a few days to a week.
For the procedure, they go in through the femeral artery and follow that up to the arteries that supply blood to the tumors. They then shoot some beads that are soaked in a special chemo blend right into the tumors and then finally, cut off the blood supply to those arteries. The analogy I came up with is that this is like walking right up to the bad guy (Tumor) and shooting him in the face, rather than bombing his whole village (my body). One of the potential side effects though, is that you could set his house (my liver) on fire. That is, it has the potential to do a lot of damage to the liver, including liver failure and/or damage to the point that I would be precluded from receiving other treatments in the future that require a nice, healthy liver.
So, I have a lot of thinking to do now as to whether I want to do this procedure or not. Currently the tumors on my liver are quite small and they would want me to come back ASAP to get the treatment, as being off chemo leaves me with the risk of them growing and then no longer being a candidate. However, if I go ahead with this procedure they would then want me to wait 2 months for a scan, and my next scan currently is scheduled in only 1 month. I take issue with this for a few reasons.
One being that if these things are growing, I don't want to wait an extra month to find out. Second being that if I get the treatment now, after I've already been off chemo for 6-8 weeks, then wait 2 months for a scan, there is really no way to know what the true results are. If it is stable, were they just stable on their own and the procedure failed? Did they grow a ton before the procedure and then it was a success? We would never know. I would prefer to have the procedure immeidately following a scan.
So my plan is to contact my local oncologist at Karmanos and see what they think about all of this.
Overall New Orleans was a good time. It is a great city, especially if you like live music or sea food (bonus for Alan, who loves both). I highly recommend it if you are looking to go on a fun vacation. We were able to hit some of our favorite spots, like Acme Oyster House and Pascale Manale. I did get sick (sinus infection) part way through the trip, probably due to weather changes, so that sucked but didn't have too much of an impact. We were able to see the Dashboard Concert while we were there, which Chris' team was so gracious to give us a pair of VIP tickets. The House of Blues was a very small and intimate venue, and as always the band put on a spectacular show.
That's really all for now. New scans coming in about a month (assuming I don't get the TACE procedure before that) and also spaghetti dinner coming up on the 16th.
View the Facebook Event here: https://tinyurl.com/FB-MegCarterDinner
Sign up and reserve your spot here: https://tinyurl.com/SignUp-MegCarterDinner
