A Busy Day - A Big Update

So first the bad news...

Jen's blood counts are still too low to resume chemo.  It does however, seem as if her levels have stabilized.  We will get the next blood draw on Monday.  If the levels have improved enough, then she will be able to continue with chemo.  As I mentioned earlier though, she will be resuming at a lower dose.  This is not an optimum situation, but it may be all we can do.  There are other chemo drugs we can try, but the next most common one for her cancer is actually more likely to cause her platelet levels to fall.  There is another one that we may be able to switch to, that perhaps she will be able to tolerate.  This drug works for some patients, but is ineffective for some as well and we would be starting from scratch to determine her tolerance level.  Her UCLA doctor would like to keep her on her current med, albeit at a lower dose, and hopefully be able to raise it slightly going forward.  Next week we go back to Cedars and will see if they concur.  This is all territory that is kind of unknown.  They don't really know if a low dose is better than no dose, or if all that we would be doing is risking harm to Jen's body for no potential gain.

Now for the good news...

Jen's latest MRI shows no progression of either the cancer or the inflammation that is probably from the radiation.  It has been 4 months since any signs of growth in the tumors.  Jen is also neurologicaly stable and has even made some small improvements.  This result is why her doctor wants to stick with her current chemo regimen, even if at a lower dose.  Something is working, but we are not sure what that is.  It could be a residual effect from the radiation, it could be the chemo that she has been taking, even her diet could be playing a role.  The general rule of thumb seems to be to not change anything if the results are positive.

Jen has now been on Novo TTF for just over 3 weeks and we received our first report card on Jen's compliance.  The data of her usage is stored in the machine and about once a month a representative from Novocure will download and analyze the stored data.  This data reports error codes to identify the sorts of errors the user is experiencing as well as total time in effective treatment.  Jen's score is the highest for any patient ever using this device at UCLA!  Jen is rocking this pain in the ass machine.  It is still too early for any of the results from the scan to be from the use of the Novo TTF, but hopefully this will contribute to success down the line.

In the meantime, Jen is doing het best to fight this damn thing and she is embracing that battle with all the strength and determination she can.  In addition to her outpatient Physical Therapy and Speech Therapy appointments, she tries to do PT at home every day - she even takes advantage of the downtime at her doctors appointments and will do her exercises amidst a waiting room full of people.  She has also been doing meditation and trying to engage her brain as well by doing puzzles and playing games.  Jen is definitely a fighter and she has maintained such a positive attitude.  I am so proud of her.