Update on Pro’ s Cancer Treatment August 21, 2009

It’s Becky again. I know it’s been a long time since you all got a real progress report on Pro, so I thought I would try to fill you in a bit.

Back in early May I believe Pro wrote a post explaining that he had decided against the available clinical trials, and that he was going with the chemo salad Dr. Teitelbaum had ordered. He took the Gem/Oxali/Tarceva for about 8 weeks.

During the treatment he got very sick and lost a lot of weight. If Pro keeps losing at this rate, my 6’ tall husband will weigh the same as his 5’3” wife in a couple of weeks. He also became very fatigued. He has some loss of use in his right leg that started months ago, and his pain is steadily increasing. But, Pro is an amazing fighter.

I want to give a pretty graphic example to illustrate Pro’s character because it really shows you what he’s made of. This past Monday, Pro came home from a treatment that had him up with dry heaves all night. I don’t remember him stopping once for more than 10 minutes without starting to heave again. It was bad. He’s on a medication that he takes for a couple of days post-infusion that seems to keep him from vomiting anything up. Unfortunately, however, it doesn’t keep him from having contractions and heaving. I should mention that the weight loss thing is a big issue. He’s pretty malnourished, and he needs the calories to enable him to continue the infusions (and thus the fight). So, in the middle of his heaving last night Pro kept asking me to feed him. He would literally take a few bites, heave, and then take a few more bites for hours on end. Imagine the longest you have ever been nauseated, and then remember that Pro has been feeling like that for about 4 months. After 4 months of constant nausea (along with the plethora of other horrors Pro is going through), I can assure you that most people wouldn’t have enough fight left in them to ask for food in that situation.

Okay, lets get back from the segue. So, after about 8 weeks of the initial treatment plan, Pro got a CT to check if there was any disease progression. The CT came back with mixed result. The nodules in the lungs had shrunk, and the Pancreatic tumor was about the same size that it had been. The lesions on his spine seemed to be manageable. And, most of the liver tumors had shrunk. But, there were also a couple of liver tumors that had grown significantly. And, well, that’s not a good thing (to say the least). So, Pro’s Dr. recommended he change his chemo regimen.

She recommended a Sorafenib / Irinotecan clinical trial at Penn. Unfortunately, Pro had to wait 6 weeks for all of the other chemotherapy drugs to clear out of his system before he could start the Irinotecan infusions, so there was a period there where he was without any treatment.

Three weeks ago he started his Irinotecan infusions, and he takes a Sorafenib tab 2x daily. Almost immediately after the 1st infusion, he lost all of his hair. And, he went through a pain spike that scared the crap out of me.

Pancreatic cancer is very painful. Pro had been managing his pain with Oxycontin, and slowly increasing the doses to keep up with increased tolerance and disease progression. At one point, the doctors decided to give him a pain block (kill some nerve endings in the spine permanently so that you can’t feel pain in certain parts of the body). Before they can take that permanent step, they first do a diagnostic block that only works for a few weeks at various levels of pain relief. Pro had the diagnostic block a few weeks before his 1st Irinotecan infusion. But, when he went back for the permanent block, there was some sort of scheduling snafu, and he couldn’t have the procedure done that day. So, they re-scheduled him for a couple of weeks later. Well, when the diagnostic wore off, Pro’s pain spiked. He tried to manage it by increasing his Oxycontin doses, until he started to have some pretty scary side effects from the overdose. To make matters worse, it still wasn’t enough. He was still in so much pain that he wanted more Oxyxontin. So, we ended up taking him to the ER for pain management where they admitted him for a few days. They got him on a ton of narcotics that held him over until he got the pain block, and then he started reducing down to lower doses. He’s still trying to reduce the dosage, but he’s on a lot of narcotics nonetheless. He’s much, much more comfortable now.

Today, he went in for a follow up on the pain block procedure, and the Dr. offered to use some acupuncture to try to alleviate some of the ridiculous nausea Pro had. Here’s a picture of my bald, beautiful hubby with a bunch of acupuncture needles in his ear ☺

Pro is still nauseated even as I sit here writing this post. But, through all of this his focus is amazing. He’s still his humorous (raunchy) and adorable self. But, his intensity hasn’t waned. He is determined to help me prepare for life without him. He spends so much of his very precious time trying to get the kids and I situated both financially and emotionally. It’s both heartwarming and heart-wrenching. Thank you, my love.

Anyhow, sorry for jumping all over the place. It’s 1:30am, and I’m too tired to try to pretty up my post.

As always, thank you all so much for your undying support. I can’t believe we’re still receiving care packages and well wishes. We are blessed to have such an incredible support group. Thank you.

Love,
Becky

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