Tarceva is no picnic.

I was told that Tarceva might give me some tummy trouble.  Oh my.  Different from the kind of sick I was from chemo--not necessarily nausea--more like sour and upset tummy.  This disease really is the pits.  In order to fight it, I have to take things that make me feel like I'm dying.

I have permission to drive effective March 11.  That will give me 6 months seizure-free.  I'm not allowed to have anyone with me in the car while I'm driving, and I'm only allowed to drive a heavy car.  I guess if I have a seizure no one in the car will get hurt.  Just the folks outside.

Mark and I had been looking at the Audi Q7 Diesel.  We walked away from what we thought was a not good deal on one a few months back.  And then Mark made one of those cancer husband statements while we were in the car driving home from my first hospital stay (for cancer): "As soon as they tell you that you can drive again, I'm getting you that Audi!"

OK, I'm ready to go shopping.

Tarceva is here

We'll start tomorrow.  Start thinking good thoughts.

Morning at our house

I've received permission to be alone with my children for short periods of time.  This frees Mark to be able to leave in the morning before the nanny arrives. He's been going to a yoga class in the morning which I know makes a huge difference in his mood.

Mark is very concerned about my use of my herbal medicine--MJ.  I guess I have been heading back toward addiction.  Once an addict always an addict.  Regardless of the reasons I am using it, it's a drug that I love and I'm loving it a little too much.  So I haven't inhaled any vapors today (I don't smoke it--I use a vaporizer) and am going to try to use it only when there is preexisting nausea.  I have been using MJ to prevent the nausea from starting (it's very effective for that).  I'm not ready to give it up yet.  Addiction, addiction, addiction.

I have deactivated my FB account

Possibly temporary? Don't know. I just got tired of being the poster child for cancer.

I start Tarceva as soon as insurance approves it.

Updates will be posted here for now.

No more chemo? Now what?

Mark and I woke up with a good feeling this morning.  We were not disappointed with the scan results. Lung tumor (the primary) is smaller, but still active. Liver tumors are 50% smaller in size, but still active. Brain tumors are dead, and bones are actually healing.

Dr. Terpenning's first instinct was to stick with chemo since it's working, but I am having so many chemo-related complications right now and sooner or later I will reach my limit in terms of toxicity.  So we are also looking at Tarceva which is a biological that targets a specific marker in my cancer. We are also looking at clinical trials, specifically one at the University of Miami.

So we've managed to slow this fucker down.  The next goal being to slow it down even more so we can completely kill it.

One of my missions this week is to work on nutrition, vitamin pushes, hyperbarics, eastern medicine, etc.