I just spent the last couple of nights in the hospital, getting discharged today. I do feel a lot better than when I went in. When I told my oncologist about my headaches and vomiting, he had me checked into the ER hours later. Given my history, he was worried something serious might be going on. The ER did a CT scan of my head, couldn’t find anything really wrong so they admitted me into the hospital for further testing. It was more of an observation hospital stay than a treatment stay. Anyway, they performed a brain MRI and a full CT scan of my whole body. The brain MRI turned out to be clear. My headaches are vomiting must be from the leftover side effects of the brain radiation. An oncology nurse friend told me it’s like a brain injury, it takes a long time to heal completely. Meanwhile, I have to take some medicine to control the symptoms. The CT scan did not turn out well which I expected. Progression of the lung and liver tumors are both shown. Tarceva, the gene inhibitor drug I had high hopes for is not working. It’s not helping me at all, so there is no point in taking it any longer.

My oncologist wants me to try immunotherapy even though it has not been proven for my type of cancer. Immunotherapy is the newest way to treat cancer. A Nobel Prize was won for that a couple of years ago. Unlike chemo, it doesn’t try to use drugs to kill the cancer. Instead, it boosts the immune system so that the immune system kills the cancer. Patients that respond to the treatment responds very well and have long last effect. He has not treated anyone with gene mutation with this method because only 5% of cancer patients have gene mutation. I decided to give it a try. I have nothing to lose at this point. If nothing else, I donate this body to science while I am still alive. Maybe I get better from it. Maybe someone else will learn something from my experience. Either way, the side effects sounded manageable. I will likely start the treatment next week. It’s one treatment every 3 weeks. I agreed to try it for 3 months and see what happens.

While my body came out of the fasting feeling really good and recovering my physical strength nicely, my left hip developed bursitis. 🙁 It’s likely from me not moving much for so long. I have always been very active with lots of physical movements. I am sure the sudden bed rest for weeks even before the water fasting has been a shock to my body. So now I am in physical therapy 3 times a week. Even though it’s painful, at least it’s not life threatening. The office doesn’t schedule many people at a time so I actually get quite a bit of help from the physical therapist. It works out nicely.

I am finally feeling a bit more like myself this morning. I am not ready to run a marathon yet… ok, never, but at least I am out of bed and somewhat clear in my head. My poor scalp feels sunburned and over sensitive from the radiation. I started losing my hair on the very last day of the radiation. Every morning I get up to brush my hair, chunks and chunks of hair felt out. I still have hair left, but won’t be for long. I am actually looking forward to being bald. I am curious what my head looks like… like a baby’s head, smooth and shiny. lol!

I declined further chemo from my oncologist. He offered me another gene inhibitor to try as a last attempt. I was on a gene inhibitor when I was first diagnose over a year ago. The drug did miracles for me initially so much so that I though cancer went into remission… but then it only took 3 months for my body to render the drug ineffective and they had to take me off it. This other drug is made by a different company, it targets the same gene mutation. It has been around longer for 4 or 5 years. It was not the drug of my oncologist’s first choice because it has huge upside and huge downside. The upside is of course it could seriously interrupts the cancer. People that respond well could stay on the drug for years and years. The downside is it could have some serious and horrible side effects including internal bleeding and organ failures that lead to death. There are no studies on patients that failed one gene inhibitor and got on another one to see if it’s effective. I know the drug works differently in the system through a different process, so I am hoping it’s just different enough that my body responds to it. Who knows, it could be another miracle! It’s my hail mary attempt one lsat time.

My insurance company denied it at first based on the fact that I failed a similar preferred drug already, but my doctor fought back and got me the medicine. It arrived in the mail this morning!! Doesn’t it look serious? Bottle within a bottle. They told me I need to wash my hands after handling the drug. If others handle the drug for me, they should wear a latex glove!! I can’t wait to swallow this thing! lol!!

It needs to be taken at exactly the same time every day on an empty stomach. I will start tomorrow! Wish me luck!