A Happy Liver

I had a port implanted this morning, and we used it this afternoon for my Gemzar infusion. It was much easier than getting chemo through a vein in the arm as the Gemzar sometimes hurts as it is going in. Robert & I have named my port, "Portia".

I had a bad bout of hand-foot syndrome over the weekend which is caused by the oral chemo medication, Xeloda. I didn't get to see as much of the rock swap last Friday as I was hobbling around on sore feet. I still have symptoms, but my feet are much improved, so I started the Xeloda again yesterday. My feet are acting like they want to swell up again, so Dr. Bergen advised me to do four days on and two days off.

And now for the good news. The nurse pulled up my blood test results on the computer and said, "Is this really your blood work?" She said it had never looked so good. Usually, a bunch of items are flagged as being out of range and this week only one thing was high, but it was close to the top of the range. Dr. Bergen said this indicates my liver is happy. He felt my liver and said some of the enlargement has subsided as well. I did fall slightly below the anemic borderline again, but the liver enzymes are still improving. My weight is holding steady as well. They didn't have results on the tumor marker and one other thing they look at each week, but hope to have those results soon.

Thanks everyone for your prayers, love, thoughts, and positive energy. I think it's working.

Just up here in Colorado with a happy liver.

Sincerely, Caroline