Disappointed Update

October 8, 2003

Well, I survived our big Celebrity Charity event ............but I'm

sure far behind now on all the postings. :-) , it's soooooo

good to have you back!!!! It was nice to see that " altman " name

listed so many times. ;-)

Rick had an appointment with the Onc Monday and we finally got the

results of his CEA yesterday. It has gone up for the second time, so

he has ordered another CT Scan (the last one was 3 weeks ago and

showed mild improvement since the May scan.) Since his CEA jumped

three weeks ago from 21.8 to 32.4, and then again this time to

40.7 ...........he feels like there is " something " growing

somewhere. So, ......the hunt is on. Not sure why he didn't ask for

a PET, since we just did the CT and didn't see anything, but we'll

see what he does on this one. I, of course, didn't ask for a PET,

because I don't want them to find something outside the liver, but I

am curious to know what is going on. Rick had already taken his OXA

drip yesterday (before the CEA report) and the doc told him to go

ahead and take this cycle of Xeloda, but that in three weeks we would

probably get in touch with MD or something and find out what

we should do next because he thinks this treatment is failing.

My question is this ......... it seems that the clinical trials tend

to require a " failure " of the other chemos by seeing a 25% growth in

spite of the chemo. We have discontinued the chemo and moved on when

it stops shrinking, but BEFORE it starts growing to keep from

allowing growth to take place. Won't that keep us from having access

now to most of these trials? I will start researching that right

now.

Needless to say, we're diappointed and Rick is totally bummed out.

But, we will take a deep breath and push forward in search of our

next " drug vehicle " to a longer future for Rick. We are NOT giving

up .........just having to jump over another hurdle! ;-) I will try

to catch up on all the posts and see how all of you are doing. It's

nice to be back so I can keep up with my " e-friends " . ;-)

Kindest Regards,

Donna Sisco

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