Scan Report

Monday was not a good day.  Our first inkling of that was when Jimmie's oncologist called him personally on the telephone two hours before Jimmie's scheduled appointment.  That is never a good sign.

After the wonderful results of Jimmie's scan in January and the fact that he has been feeling so much better since, we had fully expected this new scan to show that his cancer had shrunk even more.  The absolute worst I feared was that the cancer would have stayed the same, indicating that the essential oils we have been using were not effective on this type of cancer.  Unfortunately, neither of these scenarios happened.   Instead the scan revealed 3 disturbing bits of news:

1. the nodules in Jimmie's lungs were "slightly larger" (exactly how much was hard to decipher by me)
2. the remaining piece of tumor attached to his vena cava is spreading cancer in his abdomen.  
3. the pleurisy is gone, replaced by blood clots in his lungs instead

The doctor immediately cancelled Jimmie's chemo infusion for Monday and changed the protocol for his treatment.  Yesterday Jimmie began a series of injections into his stomach with a drug that is supposed to dissolve the clots.  Ouch!  And today I picked up the new chemo, a pill.  This pill is the one that Jimmie was going to switch to this summer so that he could travel to Africa, so this is just a bit sooner and not as pleasant a reason.  Still, this new medication reads like it is a bit more aggressive (at least the side effect list is scarier).  Yet picking it up at the pharmacy was startling for a very different reason.  Our patient co-pay was $30 which was a relief since yesterday's med ran us more than $200, but that just made me curious.  So I asked how much the insurance was picking up.  The pharmacy tech started reading numbers from her computer screen that started with "12", but when she said "thousand" my brain froze.  I know she said more numbers after that but I really could not tell you for sure what they were.  These are now officially THE most expensive pills I have ever seen - more than $430 each!  It was a bit unnerving to walk through the store with a parcel that fit in the palm of my hand knowing that it cost over $12,000.  My first thought was fear I would drop it.

Please pray that both of these new treatments will work for Jimmie without the scary side effects.

And please pray for our grandson, Cole, too.  Monday got worse just as we returned home from the oncologist when our daughter called us from the ER.  Cole had been playing with a neighbor's Husky and things got too rough.  Somehow the dog's teeth ripped Cole's lip and the split required 5 stitches.  The injury could have easily been worse so Cole was actually lucky.  Now he is just sore and bruised so the only concern is preventing infection.  A scar is a given, but he is a tough little kid.  I had to chuckle when I heard that while the doctor was stitching his lip Cole closed his eyes and hummed the whole time.  Now I'm curious what song he hummed.  It must have been a good one to keep him distracted through that and I may need to borrow it.

- Linda