My life since metastatic osteosarcoma diagnosis October 2002. I am Audra, a 34 yr old female. My husband is Glen and our 6+ year old daughter is Angela.
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Thursday, April 03, 2003
A new post! It’s been too long time and for that I apologize.
About two weeks ago, after Audra’s red blood count took a nose dive and she required to pints of blood, doctor decided to roll the dice and add yet another drug to the mix. The new drug is Thalidomide. Sound familiar to anyone?
Thalidomide was used in the 1960’s as a morning sickness medication for expectant mothers. The drug was discovered to cause serious birth defects in newborn children. The drug was pulled at that time but some years later this same drug was found to be a good treatment for leprosy. More recently the drug has been used to treat various types of cancer. Not a cure by any stretch, closer to experimental, but it does serve another purpose for Audra in addition to chemotherapy. Thalidomide knocks her out. Audra takes a few pills at bed time and she checks out of the world for 8 solid hours. After weeks of restless nights, now the Thalidomide knocks her out.
So, if you’re keeping track at home Audra’s chemotherapy regimen includes: Navelbine every two weeks, Gleevec every day, Thalidomide every night. In addition she’s taking Zometa every two weeks to help re-enforce the bones and painkiller for pain. There’s even a few other drugs that I’m not sure what they do.
Audra has been having much better days now that she’s sleeping through the night. The Navelbine is still knocking her on her butt every two weeks. A few shots of Neupogen to replenish her white blood cells, a few pint of blood to replenish her red blood cells and she’s back to normal just in time to start the cycle again.
That summarizes the situation we’re in, day after day, week after week.
Thursday, April 03, 2003
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