2nd line Cycle 8, CT

-
My dad took the initiative to ask for a copy of the CT scan's (with contrast) report when he turned up for Cyce 8 treatment (probably because the surgeons asked for it). To my surprise, the first paragraph indicated some sort of mass on the pancreas i.e. "large homogenous non-enchancing hypodense retroperitoneal mass at the region of pancreatic uncinate process"). So I asked and the doctor said that it was cancerous. Is it new because PET/CT scan didn't pick it up. Not necessarily, according to the doctor. It seems that it may be inactive and so couldn't be detected by PET/CT scan.

This confused me. PET scan may not detect it because of lack of response (hence "inactivity") to the liquid injected into the bloodstream but surely the CT scan part (hence "PET/CT scan") would had detected it? @@

I chatted with my dad about this. I said that this didn't change the treatment and palliative plans because all along doctors had assumed pancreatic cancer. In addition, it was clear that the current chemo regiment helped him significantly: no more back pain, no stomach bloatedness and no constant belching. Tumour marker had dropped too. He agreed, especially he back pain part, and that he was glad he was on this chemo regimen.

Unfortunately, the next cycle was postponed by a week as the originally scheduled week is full (probably due to New Year). Meanwhile, about 10 days before the new date, dad began to experience more symptoms:
  • Numbness in his legs. I suggested choosing the gentlest massage mode of the foot massager. It worked
  • Knee pain. Upping his glucosamine from 750mg to 1500mg made it go away
  • Swelling in his legs. Subsided a little after taking dexamethasone
  • Pain in legs. Coincidentally subsided after taking dexamethasone for the swelling. I also suggested going back to the foot massager's gentlest mode
I was glad that my suggestion helped. Usually these additional symptoms go away during the first few days of the chemo cycle.

However, he had cough and phelgm for more than a week but it got better after he consulted a doctor and, later, took medicine from a pharmacist.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark - character build (Part 1)

-
Here are the character builds for my current run (with the help of Ban): Kyrie Fellblade/Marked Counter: Slow Secondary passives: Execute, Life Font Fellblade itself is a good class because of the various conditions it can inflict and most importantly they can inflict Sleep. Iirc, the only other human class that can do this is Gadgeteer. Their passive Malice increases the chance of landing it by 10%. Fellblade pairs well with Marked because both use ATK and MND in their offensive abilities. Also, Fellblade's abilities are mostly short range whereas Marked has some long range abilities. Execute for more damage. Life Font is for suvivability. Ban opined that with two healers, there's no need for Life Font but I discover that it enables Kyrie to survive just enough for a healer to heal her up, after having received massive damage. Ban advocated for Marked/Fellblade for superior Speed (1.00 vs 0.92) and defense (heavy armor). I resisted this for a long time because I ...
Read more

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark - character build (Part 2)

-
(continue from Part 1 ) Yates Anatomist/Wizard Counter: Cripple Secondary passives: Blessed One, Smart Casting Anatomist is the best healer in game due to the passive Legendary Healer, which also then boost the amount of self-healing by Blessed One. Although Ban thinks Anatomist's Dark spells are sufficient in dealing damage and so he suggests Alchemyst as Yate's secondary class, I choose Wizard for the following reasons: Quite often, demonic creatures have Dark immunity and other creatures have immunity to other elements. So having Dark, Water, Fire, Earth and Thunder spells enable Yates to cast the most suitable spell, especially when the enemies are vulnerable to certain elements. Flexible casting :) Smart Casting is useful so that I don't need to worry much about the positioning of the enemies relative to my other characters when using Mass Healing and the area effect damage spells. As stated in previous post , there "are so many devastating Skill ba...
Read more

Sudden lower body pain

-
About two weeks ago, my mum developed pain in her pelvic bone, much more on the right side, and squeezing pain in her legs, with occassional spike in pain. She was managing it with paracetamols, 2 tabs three times daily.  Since we didn't know any particular orthopedist in private hospitals (it was only recently that I remember Dr Prashant ), I targeted one at KPJ Penang Specialist Hospital since it's in mainland Penang (instead of on the island). I made appointment for my mum with Dr Joehaimey since he has the earliest suitable date. The moment she walked through his door, he immediately asked her whether the pain from her right side. We were both quite impressed. He was in turn impressed with mum's prepared list of medication that she presented to him on a piece of paper. The key information seems to be the surgery she had back in 2011 to insert titanium plate and screws in her lower spine. He guessed that there's accumalated wear and tear due to aging. So to confirm i...
Read more