Happy Holidays everyone! The last few weeks I have just been focusing eating better and spending time with family. I was able to meet and start seeing a local hematologist for my anemia. I couldnt imagine dealing with my anemia problem and an aggressive chemotherapy at the same time. In that way, God answered my questions as to what to do next. For now, I am going to just focus on getting stronger and getting a better handle on my anemia. if it's God's will i'll get another chance at cancer treatment. I currently feel good and i'm just going to take it one day at a time.
Thanks everyone for the great prayers, treats and foods.
God Bless
R.B.
s
I created this webpage to share some of my experiences as an Osteosarcoma (cancer) patient with others.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Happy Holidays!!!!
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Prayers and strength needed
Sorry for the long break in posting. I have been using the time to determine which path to take. I also had a friend and a relative pass away during the Thanksgiving holidays.
My new oncologist wants me to exceed the lifetime limit for Adriamycin. Doing so will cause heart damage and possibly heart failure (4% chance). He feels adriamycin was the reason i went into remission from 2001 to 2010. MD Anderson doesn't follow chemotherapy lifetime limit guidelines. They supposedly exceed the limits all the time.
Well my old longtime oncologist feels that Adrimycin wasn't very effective at all. He gave me 6 cycles of it in 1999 and the tumor actually grew. He also feels that I'm not physically strong enough for Adriamycin. He feels that proceeding with this chemo will definitely kill me. It could deplete my bone marrow reserves and or increase my chances of getting pneumonia.
My new oncologist is hoping that over 10 years, the cancer may have lost its immunity to Adriamycin. So pretty much I would be definitely hurting myself, for the chance the cancer may be slowed or stopped. I'm not thrilled about the possiblility of decreasing my quality of life or shortening my life for what isn't a sure thing.
Another option I have is to have a procedure where they get a small sample of the tumor and send it off to a lab where they expose it to different types of chemo to see which chemotherapy drug is the most effective. The only drawback regarding this option is that my nerves are shot and i've begun to experience panic attacks. I dont't think I could pull this off mentally.
I'm still praying on what to do next and I know that regardless of the choice I need to step out on faith. Thanks for keeping me in your prayers.