End of 2014

I've written very little this year on this blog, because nothing much has changed.  CEA's stayed pretty low.  CT scans were not alarming, although showing some growth in existing abdominal tumors.  No new symptoms appeared to cause worry.  Chemo has been steady (mostly every third week), and although Ed is a little more fatigued by the chemo than he was in 2013, it still is not a big challenge: slowed down for 5 days instead of 3.  He continues to maintain his weight and his energy is good, although with crumby weather his exercise diligence has been severely compromised.  (Mine, by contrast, has disappeared entirely.)

He has lost access to the chemo drug that so far has been the most effective.  Mid-summer, he had a couple of very limited allergic reactions to it.  But those reactions have the potential for anaphylactic shock and so he can only have that drug if he is admitted to the hospital and it is infused at a very slow rate for 12 hours.  Which he finds not amenable, given that there still are other possibilities.  For a long time, he had only 5FU; then, after the last CT scan, he shifted to Irinotecan every three weeks.  Unfortunately, that level of chemo has seen a steady rise in the CEA..only 2-4 points every 3 weeks, but the trend is steady (currently 16.2).

So, as of the new year, he will go back to chemo (irinotecan still) every 2 weeks instead of every 3 and, after 8-10 weeks, see if there is any improvement in the CEA numbers given this somewhat higher dosage.  (The numbers are still low, of course; back at the beginning, I think they were like 300+; but they are rising which is not the direction you want.  Stable or slipping is the desired goal.)

That's the Tx wrap-up.  Ed took note of his 79th birthday at the end of November.  My 78th is looking at us from the end of January.  So, we are especially at an age where anything could happen, health wise, and we have pretty well integrated that knowledge.  If you haven't, read Atul Gawande's new book, "Being Mortal."  He is doing the good work that bioethics people were sneaking up on 20 years ago, but like any major cultural shift, it doesn't happen easily.

We're well enough; we're happy.  We have a wonderful 6-year-old cat (we took her in 2 years ago when she lost her previous family) who is a lot like us--a little inclined to want to have things her own way and to live a rather reclusive life.  But there are a lot of ways to have things, and we have yet room and time for those ways for one another.

Hope you all do, too.