Lucy... you got some 'splainin' to do!

I suppose I owe you an explanation as to exactly why I went on the new drug, Avastin (bevacizumab [whatever you want to call it]).  So here's the explanation... and it's really not as exciting as you might think.

After my latest surgery I felt excellent.  They were able to put in an ommaya (type of drain), in which I could go in every week and have the pressure taken off.  I wasn't on chemotherapy.  I wasn't on steroids, I felt good, I was working out regularly, I was bored out of my mind, and things were looking good.  Hell, they were looking great.

Then, the ommaya stopped working because the drain tip (inside my brain) had become lodged in my brain itself.  They decided I didn't need my brain sucked out, so they stopped doing the drainage.  We made the decision that if my symptoms returned, they'd go back in and replace the ommaya.  Yikes... but I can deal with that.

A few weeks later the symptoms (inability to find words, bad handwriting... errr worse handwriting) returned with a vengeance.  True to form, they scheduled surgery and got an MRI.

However, the MRI didn't show the amount of swelling in the cystic part as one might think.  They discussed it in their little powwow they hold each week and thought surgery was a bad idea.  They felt that the swelling and inflammation was likely either due to the tumor itself acting up or simple inflammation from the radiosurgery they'd done a month or so earlier.  (My brain reacts slowly to radiosurgery... and everything else.)  Either way, surgery was off and they needed something to kill large numbers of blood vessels that feed the tumor and control the swelling.

Tadadedaaaa... there's just a drug for that!  It's Avastin.  Avastin is an angiogenesis inhibitor which will shrink the blood vessels.  Indeed, I just got a call from my neurosurgeon who looked at a new MRI and he said it shrank the blood vessels.  Furthermore, my symptoms have largely gone away.  Ain't science cool.

I take Avastin every 2 weeks by IV.  Again, I was most worried about nausea but fortunately that hasn't been a problem.  I don't feel great, but such is life with brain cancer.

The plan is to keep going with this until the end of October.  Then we'll take our best guess as to a) continue the avastin b) stop the avastin or c) stop the avastin and take another shot at the ommaya.  Who knows?  

Hmmm... I think that's it.

Mike

Evil Tendencies Cancel

Will the blight end the chestnut?

The farmers rather guess not.

It keeps smouldering at the roots

And sending up new shoots

Till another parasite

Shall come and end the blight.

Robert Frost - 1936

--

This might seem strangely depressing at first, but I like to think of it as the notion of the viruses they are working on to kill certain types of cancer.  The parallel can be made to a survivor in Castanea dentata, continuously sending up shoots.  Finally a harmless parasite kills the deadly parasite... and our American Chestnut tree survives.  At least that's how I like to think about it.  

home again home again...

I'm headed home again for the next week or so, that is to West Virginia.  It's been since early June since I've been there, so it's well timed.  I'll try to write more later.  Those cwazy characters that I meet!

Okay...

I'm gonna make this short, but the symptoms have returned in large part.  There are some reasons for that, but the option which I've chosen is to start Avastin.  That'll be one every two weeks and goes in IV.  I'll start today.

m