so...

What do the scan results mean? I kind of wanted to hear that "This is the best response I've ever seen", or "This is just how a complete responder's scan would look after the first cycle." But it wasn't worded that way. It was said that these scans look great, and without the IL-2 they would be looking much worse. I think basically, we have a shot here as a complete responder (5%, gets rid of all cancer for years and years), or partial responder(15-20% gets rid of all but 30%? of your cancer), but for now it is just stable disease. This is super exciting to me.

I now have to admit, as you may have guessed, that I have known about the breast tumors for a while. The last day of my second week in the hospital I felt for them and they had disappeared. I could not believe it. This is one reason we pushed it at the end with the 9th dose on Friday, even though I was so done.

I kept wondering if there was just too much fluid in my body, that maybe the tumors were hiding. But every day I felt, and never could find even a trace. There was one you could see with the naked eye (naked being key here) sticking out for the last month. Then suddenly nothing to see or feel. I didn't want to tell anyone because at the same time these went away, my knee was killing, and another bump popped up on my neck that felt just like the others. It was a small bb at first, then a pea, and now it is a small marble. So I didn't know what was going on. I knew new growth was bad, but disappearing tumors was great. I didn't want to confuse people (mostly my kids), as we didn't know what else was happening. So we waited to talk to the Dr. Unfortunately, the scans we did started from the bottom of my neck and went down, and the brain MRI didn't go low enough to get this lesion either. I don't know, I guess it could be something else, but it feels exactly like the breast tumors (they did stick a needle in two of the breast tumors to collect cells to make sure they were melanoma. They were easy to find back then, and they were indeed melanoma). The Dr. is not so worried about the subcutaneous tumors right now (the one on my neck, and possibly a couple more that showed up on the scan), it is the liver and bones he is watching. The bone that we radiated looks like dead tumor. The large liver tumor has not grown.

These are all good signs. But yes, you can have good response without it getting all the cancer. You can do well on IL-2, but still have to do other treatments after. I guess that is still the most likely scenario. This is why Josh is saying "This isn't good news, it's just not bad news." I am disagreeing. He is usually the one looking on the bright side. Now he says the only news that would be considered good is that I'm cured and never have to go back and never have to worry about it. I am okay with that, because someday they might. Today I'm thinking someday they will. Although, they say upfront there is no 'cure' at stage IV, only 'durable response'. They shoot for 10 years. I guess that feels like forever for me. Are you kidding? Five years feels like eternity, and at ten my youngest would be sixteen. And by then there is bound to be a cure. Really, they are getting close. Go cancer research!!!