Gemzar

Oh, cancer. You are such an exhausting prima donna. Go home. Get a day job. Take up fly-fishing. Become a cabbie, maybe? Turn all that energy to something productive, for once.

Val had a CT scan Friday. We got the results this morning, and they were not we hoped or, actually, expected. “Disease progression.” The nodules in her lungs continue to grow, despite all the chemo crap we’ve been throwing at them since late February. The tumor above her collarbone stays stubbornly hunkered down in place and shows less necrosis than on the last scan. Thankfully there is no cancer visible in any new locations.

You will recall that Val began with two rounds of a chemo trial at the end of February. It was a third-stage trial, involving lots of extra visits for tests, blood draws, EKGs, and other day-ruining interruptions. When a scan showed disease progression, she switched chemos to that bastard Cisplatin, which has been making her sick as a dog one week out of three for a couple grueling months now. Three rounds of Cisplatin bring us to Friday’s scan, which brings us to a new chemo: Gemzar. Gemzar (which is administered weekly) evidently causes far less nausea (thank god) but can induce headaches and sometimes sharp abdominal pains, “like someone,” as the the pharmacist vividly put it, with hand motions, “stabbing you in the gut with a shiv.” Lovely.

Thank you for gathering us close, all you dear people. Your love and kindness keep each of us going, whether as hugs and soup in the living room, or streaming in telepathic waves from the southern hemisphere.

Deborah