Cancer Update: The Plan

I know last week’s update was rather bleak and downbeat and based more on what I was going through pain wise at the time. Today I just want to let you all know the big picture.

I have a multi step plan from my oncologist. I agree with it all. There are two main items. Treat pain and return to systemic treatment since cancer is growing.

1) We discovered from my bone scans that I’d broken part of my pelvis. I must have stressed the area after I had x-rays in January. (When I originally fell.) So the pain I’ve been experiencing isn’t bone pain from metastasis. It’s because I fractured part of my pelvis.

So first I will see a orthopedic oncologist to get an idea of what can be done as far as palliative care for my current situation. Surgery and radiation being possibilities. I have new spots with lesions. Generally they don’t hurt, but sometimes they do. I’m doing ok pain wise but we need to change the way it’s being treated since we didn’t know we were dealing with a broken bone.

And we need to see if I can get on a bone strengthening medicine since I’m obviously prone to fall and breaking bones. Again, bones are weakened considerably due to cancer and hormone treatment which I can’t go off of.

The problem is that the bone strengthening meds can cause ONJ (Osteonecrosis of the Jaw). This we don’t want (Google it). Basically it means your jaw bone dies. I need dental work which is both expensive and will take several months. I put dental work (other than cleaning) in the too expensive, don’t do bin. So we’re going to see if it’s possible to bypass the dental issues. I might get ONJ. But I definitely have weak bones and I’ve already broken one.

2) My scans from last week show that existing lesions have grown in size and number. So I need treatment. It looks like we’re going with a platinum-based chemo therapy in addition to the one I have left. This is kind of calling the big dogs. Platinum-based chemotherapy can be quite effective but is also more toxic than “standard” chemotherapy.

I will likely start treatment soon with cabazitaxel (the chemo I can repeat) and Carboplatin (the platinum-based chemotherapy).

This is it. This will not cure me. It’ll just give me a little more disease progression free time. A little more life. Don’t be strangers.