And Done.

Here's a picture of my constant companion this week as I laid around in bed!

I'm done with Tykerb for 9 days! Interestingly I felt better today than I have since Sunday. I really think a lot of it has to do with eating. I forced myself to eat something even when I felt crappy. I didn't have any real nausea today except a nasty case of car sickness on the way back from UCSF. I'm lucky to have had Keith driving me rather than being stuck on the Muni ready to puke. I managed to hold it together and didn't puke. I got home, took a Zofran (anti-nausea) and snuck in a nap.

I had an interesting trip to UCSF today. I went in for another biopsy, an EKG and a blood draw. The biopsy was a bit of a cluster fuck. The problem is that because I've had a couple of rounds of chemo, what looks like tumor in the ultrasound is really a mix of scar tissue and cancer. This makes it hard to get a good sample of cancer cells. I was hoping to get the same radiologist that I had last time and for a while it sounded like that would happen. Unfortunately she got tied up with a complicated procedure, so I had someone new. In the end they tried to get samples three different times and still didn't get much of a sample. I would be disappointed, but in talking to the doctor I learned that the results of these biopsies are not something I'll ever see. Once the sample is collected it is unlinked from my name and analyzed along with all the others from my cohorts in the trial.

In other news, I read the report from my CT scan last week. All my organs are "unremarkable"! This is a good thing. I was a little worried that being off chemo for six weeks would mean that something might crop up in the mean time. I am very very pleased to be unremarkable!

I am relieved that I'm feeling better today (although my gut sounds like a flushing toilet right now). It makes me confident that I can go ahead and do another round and more effectively control the side effects (regular eating, higher doses of certain drugs, different anti-nausea drugs, etc).

Update on Keith's mom:
She is still in ICU, but her breathing has improved. She is not out of the woods yet, but she is stable for now. The doctors have finally developed a clear outline of their plan of attack in terms of the drugs. There are no guarantees that things will work, but we are more hopeful today!