Hi,
As promised to many of you, here is the all-about-rita report for this month. This morning I had a appointment with my oncologist - partly to receive my regular treatment and partly to get the results of the CT scan and MRI that I had on Monday.
The good news is that my brain still looks the way it did at the first MRI. Given that they reported finding "nothing" at that time, one has to wonder. Whatever!
The somewhat disappointing news is that the tumor in my left lung has enlarged a bit since the last CT scan. It is still quite a bit smaller than it was last November when all of this began, but it is growing. There is also a lesser amount of clarity in my right lung than there was at the last scan.
This, the recurrence of some mild symptoms, and the evidence of slight protein depletion indicate that the Avastin that we were counting on is not working as well as we had hoped. While this sounds bad, it is not horrible. There are other drugs! I did get an Avastin treatment today and will probably get another one in three weeks. It will take some time for Doctor D. to get an insurance approval for a drug called Tarceva that I will switch to at some point in the next month or so. She did meet with the doctors at Mass. General who are monitoring my case and they all agree that this is the next step. They also have some more tricks up their sleeves for later.
So, not great news but not devastating either. I'm O.K. with that!
Thanks for caring,
Rita