Torisel It Is

Well low and behold two doctors actually took the time to talk to one another. The Lancaster oncologist and the University of Pennsylvania kidney cancer specialist agreed that the best next step for me was to start on the chemotherapy Torisel as soon as possible.

So this Friday morning I will start on the IV-based Torisel in Lancaster. I will need to go in for a treatment every Friday morning, and treatments should last for about an hour.

Considering that the tumor in my liver grew so incredibly fast, I've concluded that the Nexavar indeed had run its course and was no longer working. So I welcome the switch to Torisel. I'm not fond of the idea of having to go in every Friday to get hooked up to the "juice." But, it is what most cancer patients face. Most aren't as fortunate to have a pill that they can simply take at home. And I rode that one out for more than a year.

I'll be trading in the side-effects from Nexavar for the side-effects of Torisel. So I don't know exactly what I'm in store for yet. To many extents chemo side-effects are similar since all chemo attacks fast-dividing cells, whether they be healthy cells or cancer cells. But I did do a lot of reading this weekend on a forum for kidney cancer patients, and many patients now on Torisel were reporting feeling better than they had on Nexavar or Sutent. So . . . we'll see.

We're going to put this all in the hands of Torisel for a month. Then we'll do follow-up scans and check if the new chemo has been able to shrink, or at the very least, stabilize the tumor growth. I'd love to see the largest tumor, at 2.4-inches, shrink to 2-inches or below since that seems to be the mark for whether new, minimally invasive techniques can be used over traditional surgery.

My oncologist did garner an additional surgery idea from the specialist in Philly. It's a technique close to the ablation technique. But it involves a catheter run through a vein, into the tumor, for direct application of high dosage chemo right to the tumor.

I figure I have a month of Torisel to explore all my other options, and ready myself for anything.

I am feeling well. I mean I still have all the wonderful side-effects from the Nexavar - fatique, anorexia, tough digestion. But I feel good. That's a lot different from how I felt a month ago. It makes me feel fairly confident that the tumor growth has at least stabilized for now.

That's the latest from here. Barb and I are off to the butcher and the grocery store this morning before the thermometer hits the 90s again today. It's been brutal in PA the past few days. But thunderstorms are on the way today and a new weather front should bring temperatures back to normal for this time of year by tomorrow.

Anyone need a smoked sweet bologna stick from Groff's?