After 6 months (6 rounds of Carboplatin and Paclitaxel) of chemo for my liver mets I had my post treatment scan results today. It was the best result we could have hoped for. I started with multiple lesions across both lobes of my liver. Now there is only one very small spot that barely shows up. No recurrence in the primary site, and no spread to anywhere else. Whilst it is a very weird feeling to not be in active treatment I am thrilled that the chemo has worked as well as it possibly could. I asked about localised treatment to get rid of the remaining lesion, but was told this wasn't an option as even if they were able to remove the one visible bit, it wouldn't mean that they had got everything as there would very likely be remaining cancer cells.
So now I've got 3 months off for good behaviour and will be scanned again in January to see what's occurring.
I tolerated the chemo very well overall. I wasn't sick, I wasn't fatigued (although I did lose a lot of stamina), I retained most of my hair through cold capping, and 3 weeks after finishing chemo nobody would have a clue that any of it had ever gone. The worst side effect was that my sense of taste went wonky for 3 days after each treatment. Oh, and my neutrophils didn't play ball and were regularly too low, meaning several enforced additional weeks off and a reduction in the carboplatin dose for the last 2 cycles. We were able to get away to the Netherlands for 10 days between scans and results, which helped tremendously in taking our minds off the scanxiety. Now I need to get onto booking a proper long haul holiday for Christmas as soon as I'm brave enough to do a travel insurance quote for further afield than Europe!
Hi Crystaltipps73f2a8 , this is amazing news! Congratulations! I’m so pleased for you.
I'm also pleased that you tolerated the treatment so well even with the added complication of low neutrophils.
I’m glad you had a lovely time in the Netherlands & hope you pluck up the courage soon to have a look for the long haul travel insurance! Are you aware of our Travel insurance forum for cancer patients group? If not it might be worth a look, there may be some information over there that could be useful.
Once again I’m so pleased you’ve had such a great response to your treatment.
Nicola
