I saw my radiation oncologist today. He doesn't want to do radiation because the pain in my sternum is really the most reliable way to determine whether or not a treatment is working. If the treatment doesn't work, the pain will increase and if the treatment works then the pain will decrease.
He showed me my tumour markers as well. They were 39.5 when I had them checked in March, down from 48.8 in October and 58 last August. This month they went *up* to 41.3. That is the wrong direction. This is not good news.
Sigh. So the cancer is not being held back by the Femara and it's safe to say that the Femara isn't working anymore, if it ever did work. I see my medical oncologist tomorrow and I guess we'll have to figure out what to do next. Personally, I'd like to get my liver checked to be sure it's cancer-free before we embark on a treatment. I don't know whether it's better to check the liver via ultrasound, as I had before, or CT scan. My thinking is that a CT scan would be better suited for the liver than the ultrasound. I don't know how deep the ultrasound can get and it would have to show the entire liver.
I don't know how the Femara has failed. If it's that it no longer blocks the production of estrogen, then it would make sense to try another hormonal treatment. However, if the tumour is growing because it doesn't need estrogen anymore, well, it wouldn't make sense to try a hormonal treatment. In that case, we'd need to try a chemo to kill off the cancer cells and then maybe try another hormol treatment (or try a hormonal with the chemo).
I just don't know what to do next. I wish I trusted my oncologist more. Maybe this will be the test for me to trust my oncologist. We'll see. The saga will continue tomorrow. Stay tuned....
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