Author: Aaron

Let me put the important stuff first so it’s not like one of those recipe blogs where they tell you their life story before the recipe. We didn’t get a pCR, but it was close. Six lymph nodes were removed, they were clear of disease, and didn’t show any sign of previous disease. All the…

The surgery was a complete success. Everything went according to plan. Dr. Oncology Surgeon said that while we won’t know for sure until the pathology report in a week or so, she examined and performed an x-ray on the sample from where the titanium clip was and it looked, ‘good’. That’s as good as we…

We got the results of Makoto’s pre-surgical MRI last week. They show no mass remaining, but some material around the “clip” which was a small titanium shard that was placed at the site of the original biopsy to mark the location of the original tumor for removal. This material surrounding the clip is either 1)…

Last Wednesday was the final infusion. So far the recovery has not been too bad. The standard stuff that Makoto is used to now, all fairly easy to control with meds and rest. The last examination was generally the same, a very tiny nodule that is barely there remains, but Dr. Oncologist thinks it may…

Dr. Oncologist, upon examination two weeks seemed actually surprised and said, “Wow! It’s very soft and flat. I feel like it is starting to break apart. The AC is definitely working.” This was honestly the first time either of us recall her being surprised. Today, two weeks later at the exam, she said that the…

That’s what they call it anyway. Doxorubicin also known as Adriamycin which is the “A” in AC. Makoto’s first dose was this last Tuesday, and I think we all collectively held our breath to see what the effect would be. So far, it does not seem to be awful, but it is having a much…

Makoto is finally feeling better and can get sleep again at night. Given everything else, that’s really good news. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind the last few days. On Tuesday we finally went to a deserted Urgent Care in the city to get her checked out. A battery of tests, including a CT…

The last MRI of the tumor was in April. This week Makoto got another MRI and Friday we heard from the surgeon on the results. THE TUMOR HAS SHRUNK BY 50%!!!!! MRI results are returned as a set of three dimensional coordinates. Front to Back, Side to side, Top to Bottom. In two of the…

This week was week 11 of the first round of treatment. It was the 4th week of the Carboplatin + Taxol treatment regimen. Next week will be the last week of Taxol + Carbo, then a week break. After that week there will be an MRI to see what impact the first rounds have had…

We got the MRI results back on Monday and were super happy to see that the tumor has started to shrink! It looks like it’s smaller by almost 7mm, which is good news! The “but” comes in the form of Dr. Oncologist wanting more. She had been hoping for more of a reaction to the…