Update

On April 19 Dennis went in for his CT scan, with results on April 22. The Afinitor is not working. There is an increase in the size and number of lesions in the liver. An increase in lymph node involvement, along with an increase in bilateral pulmonary nodules. Certainly not the news we wanted. Dennis will be starting a new drug, Inlyta, in a few weeks. He will have a CT scan in mid July to see if the medicine is working.

Change...

A change was made to the list serve I use for kidney cancer information. Waaaah!!!

Oh well, it's a work in progress...

Update: I went back in the site again and I'm still not a fan of the new format. I know I need to give it a chance, but it was so much easier to just read it in my email. I'm looking forward to a daily digest to be implemented which would work much better for me. Hope they add that feature soon because I hate scrolling through stuff!

Blood Transfusion

It's been an interesting week...

Last Friday Dennis commented his chest was tight, and in his words "feels like vise grips". The nurse Onc told him to stop the Afinitor until she saw him on Monday. Her first comment, "you look really pale". The blood work showed Dennis' hemoglobin was 5.4, normal is 12. Tuesday he went in for a blood transfusion. He returned on Thursday and his hemoglobin was at 7.7. The nurse said 8 is the deciding factor, so he had another transfusion.

Dennis also had a MRI on Thursday to take a closer look at his spine. Unfortunately, he was unable to complete the contrast part of the MRI, but after the nurse took a quick look at the report she believes he was scanned long enough for the information they need. He has a CT scan on 4/19, so I'm pretty sure we will get the MRI results during his visit on 4/22.

I hate to assume, but with Dennis' increased pain, and a few other issues, I'm not too sure the Afinitor is working. Usually when I assume, I'm wrong. I hope this is the case.