The vacation from chemo is over

Unfortunately, cancer has decided that Craig's vacation from treatment is over.  Six months was long enough. On Sept 13 Craig had a scan of his abdomen and chest. The next day we met with Dr Weis and he revealed the results of the scan. The tumors in his liver have grown by about 25%. Tumors that were 12 cm x 6 cm are now 15 cm x 8 cm. Dr Weis said that we had 3 choices: do another chemo embolization (liver-directed therapy); undergo intravenous chemo; or start on a new chemo pill, Everolimus. Craig was surprised that the tumors had grown that much. He said he was willing to try the pill. So a few days later the insurance was worked out and he picked up the medication. Interesting thing about the packaging. The pill is in a blister pack and on the outside of the bag it says to only handle with rubber gloves. Pretty crazy he's ingesting something that you can't touch with your bare hands. In true Craig fashion, he refused to take the full dose at first and broke the toxic pills in two. He took the half pill for 6 days and noticed a few side effects. Weird things like the pads of his fingers feeling very hot, extreme headaches that start with the feeling you are inhaling a toxic smell and it goes up in your sinuses and then your head "closes in on you". Those last for more than 10-15 minutes. When he started on the full pill a week ago he still continues with the same side effects including being more tired but now having thrush (yeast infection) in his mouth and throat. He has been gargling with baking soda and salt which seems to help.  His gut feels tight and he has cramping quite often. He says the side effects are better than the last pill Sutent.

One issue that forced Craig to go back to the doctor was his blood sugars. He's been having a tough time keeping his blood sugar up. He can't eat enough food to keep from crashing every 3-4 hours. We thought it might be the tumor on his pancreas coming to life or maybe an insulinoma which is a new tumor on the pancreas that overproduces insulin.  What Dr Weis surmises is that the new tumor growth is eating the sugars in his body. We hope the new pill will help with the low blood sugars plus stop the tumors from growing. It's not likely the pill will kill the tumors but it should hold the tumors from growing more.

In other news in the last 6 months: we had a wedding!  Amazing to think that Craig is still here for Maddie's wedding. I remember when we hoped he would see Maddie graduate from high school and now she has graduated from college in May and was married in July.  It was a beautiful day and we absolutely adore Mitchell Devon Peterson her new husband.  They are living in Richmond VA where Mitch is in his second year of med school at VCU.  Maddie is currently applying to med school for fall 2017 and working for a urologist in VA as a scribe. We are officially empty nesters and we aren't real happy about it but we do have Scout and we hope to travel on the motorhome and visit our kids regularly!  We just hope Craig will be up to it all.