I recently had a CT scan (13.12.21), and was amazed on the 17.12.21 I had an Oncologist catch-up re treatment (on Capecitabine for liver and bone mets) and she gave me the result from the scan, liver met which was a small dot back in Sept 21 is stable (Phew) but she mentioned that I had a hairline fracture on pelvis?!? I haven’t noticed or felt any pain which she confirmed she wasn’t surprised as just a hairline fracture. I have never been told I had bone mets on pelvis and she confirmed that when I had previous scan 23.9.21 there was was no pelvis mets but as I wasn’t on any treatment for a month (started Cape on 21.10.21) she thinks this could have been when this started, however she did mention that it was healing itself. I also had a little bit of fluid on lung which maybe cancer related but could also be a have a small infect/cold. My previous treatment of Fulvestrant and Palbociclib never worked for me, so in effect from secondary diagnosis April 21 until Oct 21 I was not being treated! The good result was my CA15-3 maker was down from 122 to 94. Does this sound like good results? I really wish everyone good results and I hope you can have a good Christmas. With love Louise xx
It’s all very confusing isn’t it? From what I understand, any downward trend in markers is good. Everyone has different baselines so it’s hard to make comparisons. I’ve looked up CA15-3 and see it’s a tumour marker. My tumour marker dropped from 28 to 23 in the first 3 cycles of cape, so that’s a comparable drop (to my uninformed brain) to yours. My blood markers went from 128 to 19! Since you’ve only had 2 or 3 cycles of cape, any change you’ve mentioned sounds good.
I’m losing faith in CT scans after they stated I’d had a kidney removed (nope, I’ve got two, clear on the abdominal scan!). My CT scans keep throwing up all kinds of ‘suspicious areas’ which they don’t mention in the next report. Then they mention them 6 months later. They stressed one was serious but the bone scan radiologist insisted it’s a badly-healed fracture of the sternum (car accident while on primary chemo 2 years before). Apparently I have 4 cysts on one ovary - I found that out by chance. What it has shown is that some of the iffy areas haven’t responded to cape and therefore the oncologist believes they are not cancer-related. It looks as though I have a lot of health problems queuing up! But the CT scan shows virtually everything. Maybe we don’t need to worry about them?
Reading back, it doesn’t look as though I’ve been of much use except you know there’s a fellow cape-taker you can compare yourself with. Both of us are just doing what needs to be done, maybe not fully understanding. But that’s ok with me. I don’t want too much information as it gets scary. I’m a contented ostrich! All the best