Our fruitful meeting with the oncologist

We visited with the oncologist to find out what the scans showed and plot out the near future. Things looked pretty good! All the tumors are stable, and there is nothing new. This is pretty much what we were hoping for, short of having everything mysteriously disappear.

The other good news is that the doctor is going to give Arlina a month off from chemotherapy. This is so that she can build up her immunity a little, and regain some strength and weight. This made me very happy--chemo is a killer.

In the interval, she will get the new drug Erbitux, which is not chemo, but a recombinant human/mouse (I just had to ask if one of the side effects was "squeaking") monoclonal antibody which blocks human growth factor from reaching cancer cells (or something like that). Its side effects are infusion related, so it will mostly be on the day she gets it, and not drag out over days and weeks. Interestingly enough, Erbitux was developed by ImClone, the stock that got Martha Stewart in trouble. So there.

This is probably the least discouraging news we have received since this whole thing began. Arlina was quite pleased with the report. Me too.

I'll probably post an alternate version of this in agrupdate later today.