So good news to start out Round 2! My labs looked good and most importantly, it looks like the tumor has already shrunk noticeably. I had thought I was feeling it shrink, but I was going to defer to the doctor to be sure.
But this is good news for two reasons:
- It shows that the tumor is responsive to chemo. Obviously, there were protocols that said it should be responsive to it, but until it does, you don’t really know. And there is a bit of relief that it is working!
- It means that surgery can be less intense. (Maybe intense isn’t quite the right word here, because it will still be surgery and a lumpectomy, it’s the best word I’ve got now.) It should reduce the amount of tissue that they need to remove when I have it.
I meet with the surgeon in a couple of weeks to set out the surgery schedule. For now, I live with the chemo symptoms from this round. Overall, they said most acute symptoms stay the same from the first round and I should know how to predict and manage them better this time. However, a few other symptoms will accumulate, in particular, fatigue, taste issues and potential chemo brain.
Overall, I remain really pleased with this path of treatment. It isn’t typical, but I like knowing the full course of treatment now. More typically, people have surgery, then the tumor is sent for genotype testing and they have to wait for the results after surgery to find out if they will need chemo. Maybe it isn’t a surprise that as a consummate planner that I like seeing the full project plan.
And the featured image is from the “Corner Office” we had today! I’m going to do another post on what a typical chemo day looks like, but you can get a preview of the room now!