Micro-spheres

Well we just returned from Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago where they inserted the Y-90 Micro-spheres into the tumors still in my liver.

I want to thank Bill (see Bills Blog) for telling us about SIRT. More importantly I would like to thank Northwestern Memorial Hospital and their staff for taking my case on. When everyone else said it would not help they stepped up to help me and to give us a ray of hope.

If we can all work together and share information and knowledge with one and other, we might start to win this fight.

The process is two fold. I visited the hospital 3 weeks ago for testing to make sure that I was a candidate.  This was a 6 hour process and left some pain in my right leg and lower back.

The final piece of this was the actual insertion of the micro-sphere beads. I ended up having to lay flat on a bed for 6 hours to seal off my artery in my right leg. I was told that the pain over the next 2 weeks go from very little to pretty bad to less than I had before the process started.

I’ve been running a fever the past 2 evens but so far we are able to keep that under check. The nausea is has not been good, but the Compazine has been working for that.

I will get started again on Monday with my herbal tea and acupuncture. This has helped my platelet counts to 30+ now. It has not been that high for months.

Until next time:
YOU KEEPING FIGHTING CANCER and ENJOY THE DAY!

East & West Working Together?

Wouldn’t it be great if Western medicine would wake up and start taking advantage of Eastern medicine? That’s what we are trying to do now and with the fact that I have very limited Western options left.

The Eastern medicine (herbs and acupuncture) have given me  alot. I feel better and have much more energy than I had before. Now the herb tea I’m drinking… that is some nasty stuff to say the very least, but it is much better than chemo.

We are moving forward with Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago with the Radioembolization (RE) using (90) Y-microspheres. This could help stop or slow the tumors growth.

I should know Monday what my schedule will be at NMH. I know that we will have to travel up there for one more test before I’m given the green light to go ahead.  From there I return home until they put together a detailed plan for me.

Once that is completed we will travel back to Chicago for the insertion of the 90-Y microspheres. That is really all I know about the process at this time. I don’t know how long the recovery will be or how long before they will let me travel back home.

Last bit of news from last week was my blood work report! No better, but no worse either, so I’m standing my ground. Platelets are still 17!

Till next time You KEEP Fighting Cancer and ENJOY THE DAY!

Acupuncture

It's been a couple weeks since I last updated this blog, but we have been busy searching the web for more information and options for my cancer type. And since I'm a good 10 weeks withOUT chemotherapy I feel really very good.

In the mean time I found myself heading off to an acupuncture doctor to see if they could help manage my pain a little better than the pain pills that I'm now addicted to.

I can say that after just one week the acupuncture has helped my pain by a good 80% if not more. I've only had one or two events that my pain levels were bad enough to take a fast acting pain pill (oxycodone). This is amazing to me since I was taking oxycodone and oxycontin both everyday.

If you are having pain of any kind for any reason I would strongly suggest that do the research to find a great acupuncture specialist in your area and make an appointment. I wish I would have done this at least a year ago if not more. They have also shown me a very simple exercise to help get more oxygen into my system. 

The combination of massage and acupuncture have given me a way to relax, maintain pain and stress and now a way to increase my oxygen levels. I'm looking forward to learning what else is possible in the Eastern medicine realm.

Again the key here is to find the right specialist that has dealt with cancer patient's in the past and knows their craft. 

As for "traditional" medicine I have a CT scan coming up in a couple of weeks as well as lab work to see where my blood levels are. No treatments at this time. 

We are talking with Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago  about a Radioembolization (RE) using (90)Y-microspheres. This could help stop or slow the tumors growth.

Until next time- You Keep Fighting Cancer and ENJOY THE DAY!