Today is Steve’s First CT Scan
Steve is going this morning for his first CT Scan. We are pretty hopeful that it will look good because of how good his CEA number has been. But seeing it will be good to reassure us that the Chemo is working.
He will also have is CEA number checked on Monday. We will have the results of both of those tests on Tuesday when we meet with his Oncologist.
Steve has been getting mouth sores the last 3 cycles and they are unbearable for him. We’ve been trying all sorts of ways to make them better and possibly avoid them but after talking to the doctor yesterday, we are thinking of pulling back on one of the Chemotherapy drugs a little bit. There is one drug (FU-5) that causes mouth sores. The doctor suggested we reduce that by about 15% to hopefully stop the sores from reappearing. I asked him how this would affect the treatment and he doesn’t think it’ll change it’s effectiveness.
It’s one of those things that may seem so minor to someone not in the situation and you may wonder why would we actually reduce a drug that is working to keep his tumors at bay, but the mouth sores are something Steve (or I) can not live with.
The mouth sores not only hurt when he is just sitting still reading, but they hurt when his teeth brush up against them, when he tries to drink ANYTHING including water and when he eats ANYTHING including soft foods like scrambled eggs. So what it comes down to is he can’t eat hardly at all when they are at their worst. He needs to eat and drink so we have to do this.
I’m confident in Steve’s Oncologist and that he wouldn’t recommend it only after 6 treatments, if he didn’t think that’s what we should do. I also want to see my husband happy as much as I can.