The Case of the Disappearing Spots*

When I went to the clinic yesterday for what I thought was going to be the first of four CyberKnife procedures, it turned out they had me scheduled for only one procedure. What? But when I'd gone for the consult a few weeks ago, the rad onc told me it looked like I had four cancer spots on my brain and that I'd probably need four sessions, one to treat each spot. Nope! Much better news! It turns out that on closer inspection with the super-duper stereotactic brain radiation planning MRI in August, my lovely rad onc was able to see only two li'l spots in my noggin instead of the original four we thought were there back in July, so she was able to zap both li'l spots (which, she is certain, were indeed cancerous lesions) in the same session. But what happened to the other two spots? The good doc suspected that they had perhaps resolved on their own and might just have been enlarged blood vessels. Whatever the reason, I'm glad and deeply grateful they are both gone, and I'm glad the two remaining spots got zapped and are curling up to die as I write. 

Today I am tired and dizzy, and my face is a big fat full moon from the steroids I have to take to keep my hot mess of a brain from swelling, but I am finished, after one treatment, with brain radiation. Now for some rest.

Here's the upshot regarding prognosis -- I am likely never going to be "cancer-free" unless research really speeds up a lot and the brilliant minds find the miracle cure. I've known that since the beginning. I had been very hopeful that I would get more time on the two inhibitors we've tried, as other patients have gotten years on both crizotinib and lorlatinib. That still could happen with lorlatinib with help from radiation and chemo, but my cancer sure does like to mutate quickly, so we'll see.

I really do hold stock in what my first onc, Dr. Peacock, had to say when I was first diagnosed: "We're hoping to treat metastatic cancer as a chronic condition, and we're hoping the research outpaces the disease." Where the research is leading now is in the direction of personalized, genetically tailored treatments (vaccines), immunotherapies, targeted therapies, and combination treatments like the one I am trying (targeted therapy (loraltinib) + radiation + chemo). My new onc, Dr. Johnson, works on the cutting edge, right where I am disease-wise. So I remain hopeful that if we nip and tuck these pesky pop-ups, and I maintain a healthy lifestyle, I'll be able to live a long time with this rude little cancer gangster doing life in inhibitor prison. Maybe one day it will disappear like those two spots.

*This content is adapted from a CaringBridge post which goes into more detail about upcoming treatment, so if you want to see that you can visit Leslie's CaringBridge journal.