Not to bury the lede, the news was about as good as news gets for me these days.
Basically, the tumors in my lungs have continued to grow, but modestly. The largest is about 10 mm. No new ones have emerged that were detectable by scan. As my oncologist says, this is not the most dangerous part of things. While unfortunate, we can live with this for now.
The abdominal tumors, in my liver and in omentum, have shrunk. Again, no new ones have emerged that were detectable by scan. This is a significantly good step, as it indicates the Regorafenib treatment has been effective. Shrinkage is in fact unexpected, as we were hoping for static size or minimal growth.
We discussed the recent highly elevated CEA levels which had so alarmed everyone. My oncologist is not sure what they mean, and neither are their colleagues. Possibly cancer cells under attack are releasing CEA as part of their stress. In effect, this is the first time CEA has given me a false positive. Which is a good thing.
The doctor characterized me as being an outlier, or even outlier to the outliers. My survival time is reaching unusual lengths. They felt like I could look forward to another nine to eighteen months of life, given the drug performance. That is sufficient time to possibly survive long enough to see next-generation treatments become available.
As of yesterday, I am resuming Regorafenib. Our followup is blood work and an oncology consultation in a month, with CT scan and another oncology consultation in two months. This also means that barring unusual circumstances, I will be at Worldcon.
So good news, or at a minimum, least-bad news.
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