Tag Archives: cancer

Fourth and Last PRRT Done!

Carcinoid Cancer, Health, NETS Theranostics, Neuroendocrine Cancer, ,
Joe Harris’s cupcakes for celebration
Bang the Gong after the 4th Treatment

Treatment

Yesterday I had the last of the Peptide Receptor Radionuclide Treatment! Wahoo!

For more information about this treatment see my blog here and here.

Side-Effects

Although I have only some fatigue today, I know that I will have a few other symptoms for a some weeks. Most people who have had the treatments tell me that the side-effects got less severe with each treatment (typically four treatment, eight weeks apart). This is my experience as well. There are some patients that have severe side-effects throughout the treatment cycle.

Typical side-effects that I typically experience are bad fatigue, abdominal pain (for me only in the mornings), nausea (only intermittent and light in my case) and joint and muscle pain (arthritis for me) is amplified quite a bit.. As today is only the day after and for me most side-effects are delayed a bit, I won’t know how the treatment effects me and for how long until a few days have passed. I know that some patients are not as lucky as I have been and have experienced dangerous and/or very uncomfortable reactions. A good friend had such a strong histamine reaction a few days after the treatment that she was admitted to the hospital.

Yesterday’s Treatment

Too early (7:00 am), the nurse welcomes me. At this clinic, a nurse is assigned to you and one other patient and shepherds us through the day. I love the nurses who do this. We are well cared for. This clinic does two patients in the morning and two in the afternoon.

The other patient, Paul, is already there. He is from Denver also and this is also his 4th treatment. This is a surprise because, in prior treatments, the other patients have been from out of state.

Our nurse hooks us up for the anti-nausea medication IV, somewhat later an IV of amino acids that are meant to protect our kidneys from the radiation is started. The amino acids will run for more than four hours, before the infusion, during the infusion and after the infusion until we are discharged to go home.

Two or three hours after arrival, we walk to the Nuclear Medicine department, pushing our IV poles before us. There the actual infusion of the radionuclide concoction of somatastatin (octreotide) analog coupled with the radionuclide lutesium-177, known as Lutathera, is hooked into the IV to drip into our arm for about 40 minutes.

After the infusion is done, we take the IV poles and walk back to the clinic where we each get a private room because we are radioactive now. For me, I went by wheelchair because I was quite light headed upon standing up from the infusion chair. That stayed with me for at least and hour and only gradually dissipated after that hour.

After that we wait for a couple hours while we snack and are basically under observation to make sure we aren’t having any strong adverse reaction.

Now the Celebration

I have had the good fortune to meet Joe Harris, Oncology Account Mgr, Advanced Accelerator Applications (company that makes Lutathera) at a couple of conventions. Two weeks ago when he found that I would be having the final Lutathera treatment, he promised to bring cake to the clinic. As you can see from the picture above, he brought cupcakes during the waiting period after the infusion. He brought enough for the patients, the clinic staff and the Nuclear Medicine staff. They were really good!

The clinic has a little tradition of “Banging the Gong” after the 4th treatment.

Bang the Gong youtube
Watch this video on YouTube.

I have been very fortunate to be treated by such a wonderful group of people.

Known Results

My Dr. says that we cannot perform scans (to determine if the tumors have shrunken or disappeared due to the treatment) for months. This is because the tumors usually swell for a while after they are attacked by the radiation. So…. there will be a CT scan in about three months and the GA-68 PET/CT scan at about six months (the definitive scan).

But, here’s a known result. I have had night sweats and evening chills daily for 10 years. Some oncology nurses call this tumor fever, they can be a misery. They have not happened at all for the past three or four months. Something good has happened!

May we all have the best possible outcome,
Cy

Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2019 Cyril Ball

Information Sources for Neuroendocrine Cancer

Carcinoid Cancer, Health, ,

In the last couple of years, I have been co-leader of the Colorado Carcinoid Cancer Support Group (CCCSG).   I have developed the habit of always sending a list of (usually reliable) information  and support sources about our disease.

The year I was diagnosed, 2011, most of these sources did not exist or were not generally known (NETs itself was not known by most people including medical people).  The ACOR listserv and the Carcinoid Cancer Foundation were the only reliable things I could find.  I got information from these and from conferences that CCCSG sponsored in Denver and from the members of CCCSG. My own doctors claimed that they could give all the information I wanted, but I soon found that they knew less than I did.  It seems to me that because they were strictly evidence based medicine believers, they did not think they needed to know anything about NETs.  At the time, the only thing on their checklist was Sandostatin and perhaps TACE (Transarterial chemoembolization).  I eventually knew enough to know that I had to switch from that oncologist and the HMO she works for.

Times have changed.  More treatments and diagnostic tools are available now and more are under development.  There are many more sources of both information and support for NETs sufferers.  One still has to be careful of old or incorrect information but things are better.

So I have added a page to this site listing the sources (see the menu above.) I also include it here:

CAUTION: Fortunately for us the medical treatments for NETs are being developed rapidly at this time. There may be out of date information. Especially in the videos which are 1 to 4 years old. They are still good starting points.

Colorado Carcinoid Cancer Support Group

The Carcinoid Cancer Foundation (carcinoid.org) Highly Recommended. It has a NETs doctor database here: https://www.carcinoid.org/for-patients/treatment/find-a-doctor/

The Healing NET Foundation (thehealingnet.org) This has info for both Patients and Professionals. We encourage you to download and read their NET Primer. They also have a new guide to the PRRT treatment,

The NET Patient Foundation has good information.

Download this book (very technical, you may want to recommend to your physician):

Neuroendocrine Tumors: A Comprehensive Guide to Diagnosis and Management

National Institute of Health has a good online book about NETs/Carcinoid Tumors.

The North American Neuroendocrine Tumor Society Has treatment guidelines for doctors. Now a couple of years out of date.

Neuroendocrine Tumor Research Foundation Good resources, including a doctor database here: https://netrf.org/patient-resources/doctor-database/

By Pharmaceutical Companies

Carcinoid.com – supported by Novartis Phamaceuticals

XERMELO, a treatment for Carcinoid Syndrome Diarrhea by Lexicon Pharmiceuticals

The NET Alliance – A Novartis Oncology Initiative

Videos

Carcinoid Cancer Foundation Presents ABC’s of Carcinoid and NETs

Carcinoid Cancer Foundation – Carcinoid Syndrome

Carcinoid Cancer Foundation Presents Surgery and Treatment Options

Dr. Liu explains PRRT

Blogs

Ronny Allan – Living With Neuroendocrine Cancer – Very well researched, informative.

Cy Ball – Music – A blog about music and cancer – This is my own blog, of course.

Support Groups

Support groups can offer emotional support as well as information. Be careful, although many groups are monitored by doctors, the information shared by patients may not be accurate.

The oldest group is probably an email listserv run by the Association of Cancer Online Resources.

Join Here (http://acor.org/listservs/join/33)

There are several Facebook groups:

Dr. Liu’s Zebras

Carcinoid Coffee Cafe

NET Patients Sharing Knowledge & Exerience (This is more about knowledge than support).

Carcinoid Cancer Awareness Network

Goblet Helpthefight Carcinoid – this is about Goblet Cell, I do not know much about it.Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2018 Cyril Ball

Radiology Report from CT Scan – 2016-10-27

Carcinoid Cancer, Health, , , , ,

This log should encourage everyone to get copies of their CT Scans,  MRIs, octreoscans, GA68 scans, and all reports on scans and procedures and test results.  You will often find things that your doctor doesn’t mention.  In the past, when I was with an HMO, my oncologist never went over the radiology reports with me and there were a number of things that I needed to know as well as things she should have known but did not pick up on.

I reported on the positive results of my meeting with Dr. Liu in the post Stability, Carcinoid Cancer 2016-10-27.  At the time, we did not have the actual written radiologist’s report. It is worth understanding that with chronic disease like neuroendocrine, we get many scans and radiologists typically compare previous scans to the present scan.  In this case, October’s scan was compared to the scan from October last year (2015).

That radiology report about the CT scan came to me in the mail Saturday and I was amazed and very happy to read it!

  • Neuroendocrine cancer – No lesions found in liver (Dr. Liu and I did find a lesion in our meeting and that had not grown, not sure why the radiologist did not) but the previous report had shown 5 or 6 very small lesions. They have shrunk to invisibility!
  • Urinary bladder, kidneys, ureters – all normal.  This is important because I have struggled with urinary bladder cancer recurring for about three years now.
  • Everything else – normal!  Still no sign of the primary tumor.  Wish we knew where that little bugger is!

This is HUGE!!! From six visible lesions to one is unexpected, the monthly Sandostatin LAR injections (and of course my good living, Hah!) must be effective.  Of course caution is in order, this is a radiologist that has never seen my scans before.  Also, even lesions too small to see can start to grow again, in fact, it is said that the primary tumor generates microtumors that seed everywhere else.

But this is an even better CT scan report than I thought at the time of meeting with Dr. Liu.  I am certainly really happy and ready to go forward with hope.

All of you who have our disease: Get copies of your scans and reports about scans and test results.  At least try to read them.  It will teach you things and may have good news.

May we all have the best possible outcomes,

Cy

 Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2016 Cyril Ball

Neuroendocrine Cancer Awareness Day 2016

Carcinoid Cancer, , ,

Tomorrow, Thursday, November 10, is Neuroendocrine Cancer Awareness Day.

Cy Zebra
Cy is a Zebra

Yes, I am a zebra.  I have neuroendocrine cancer.

“When you hear the sound of hooves, think horses, not zebras.”

This phrase is taught to medical students throughout their training.

In medicine, the term “zebra” is used in reference to a rare disease or condition.  Doctors are taught to assume that the simplest explanation is usually correct to avoid patients being misdiagnosed with rare illnesses.  Doctors learn to expect common conditions.

Unfortunately, many doctors forget that us zebras actually do exist.  The average time to diagnosis for us is about six years!

Keep reading, there are lovely baby pictures below!

The Healing NET is featuring some of our stories here.  I got selected to be one of them!

From Carcinoid Cancer Foundation This is a graphic depiction of many of the symptoms and locations:

symptoms of carcinoid
Possible symptoms and locations of Neuroendocrine Cancer.

An easier to read version is here.

My point is, obviously, be aware of Neuroendocrine Cancer also known as Carcinoid Cancer.

Our lovely granddaughter at 11 weeks!

margot1-2016-11-07 margot3-2016-11-07 Who could resist our Margot?

Namaste,

CyDigiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2016 Cyril Ball

Stability, Carcinoid Cancer 2016-10-27

Carcinoid Cancer, Health, , , , , ,

My specialist Dr. Liu and I were concerned that perhaps my thyroid function was not good. Since Sandostatin injections can impact that and also ten years ago a nodule was noticed on my thyroid and not really followed up since then, I had an ultrasound last week and the “nodule” was still there. That worried me a lot.
There was also the possibility that my Carcinoid disease was progressing which is always a worry for those of us with the disease. I have been having more episodes of chills in the evening and occasionally night sweats.

Dr. Liu believes the “nodule” is cancer but has not changed significantly in ten years and the test for thyroid function are good.  His recommendation is to revisit it in six months.  He told me that conventional wisdom is usually to remove the thyroid but that he doesn’t agree when it is this slow growing.  I am good with that. The less surgery, the better.

With blood tests and with a CT scan, there is no indication that the carcinoid has progressed.  The small tumors in my liver have not changed and blood tests give no indications of change.

Obviously, I am overjoyed.  It has been 3.5 years since my liver surgery and the carcinoid has been pretty stable.

Other good news is that the new GA-68 scanner will be used for patients starting next week!  I will probably get it in the spring to insure that carcinoid tumors have not spread to any other areas of my body.

My back is still a painful problem.  I have degenerative disk, arthritis and DISH (Diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis – tendons hardening to calcium).  I have tried a chiropractor and it’s no help. Hopefully today’s CT scan will give my PCP some clues.  I have been attending hot yoga classes for the last eight weeks and that gives me some relief for a day or so, but the pain can still be pretty bad.  I think we will be looking at injections in the spine soon.

No news about solutions to the urinary bladder cancer problem as of yet.

 

Namaste,

CyDigiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2016 Cyril Ball

Bladder cancer procedure- 2016-09-13

Carcinoid Cancer, Health, , , , , , , ,

Urinary Bladder Procedure

I had another day surgery today for urinary bladder cancer and just returned home.  For the fourth time, cancer had to be scraped from the inside of my urinary bladder.  After the tumor was removed a type of chemo (mitomycin C) was left in my bladder. Although the procedure itself was about an hour long, Laurie and I spent from 9:30am until about 4:00pm in the hospital. I have to wear a Foley catheter for two days and then remove it.

The original anesthesiologist assigned to me was delayed in another surgery, I was assigned another one.  He decided to use the same procedures that were used during this procedure in April.  He thanked me for giving him a chance to study a disease he had only heard of in school but never seen (neuroendocrine cancer). I made sure that the octreotide was there and ready when I was wheeled to the operation room. In fact, we had to wait for the pharmacy to deliver it, even though the originally assigned anesthesiologist had ordered it.  The doctor told me that the pharmacist had to look up recommendations and dosages because they had not used it before.  At the pre-operation meeting a week ago,  I had given the doctors copies of Dr. Woltering’s protocol, Dr. O’dorisio’s protocol and Dr. Pommier’s protocol.

In any case, all went well.

The larger problem is that this bladder cancer has recurred several times now.  This summer, I was given the BCG immunology treatment for six weeks.  That is supposed to be 70% effective in preventing bladder cancer recurrence.  Obviously, it did not work.  My doctor is searching for other solutions.  He says that there is some evidence (that means not proven with acceptable studies) that interferon added to the BCG can help.  He is unsure of it and also insurance would probably not cover it. I will probably re-do the BCG treatment in any case.  My doctor has also checked for any drug studies that I could enroll in.  So far, three studies have turned me down because I also have neuroendocrine cancer.

We will have to keep searching.  I really do not want to have this procedure every six months until my bladder walls are so thin they have to remove my bladder.

Other news

A. I have been seeing a chiropractor for five weeks now, twice a week because I have severe back pain.  Two problems plague me:

  1.  Degenerative Disk Disease Basically, damaged or worn out disks between the vertabrae.  I am the oldest of 12 children and at least 4 of us have this problem.
  2. Diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) Essentially the tendons in the spine start turning to bone.  This and the degenerative disks above were first seen because I have so many full body CT scans and a bone scan checking my neuroendocrine cancer.  They do not know the causes and there is no cure. It is not uncommon but usually found in very old patients.  Darn it! I am not that old yet. Lucky me.

So far the chiropractic treatment has managed to move the pain around but not reduce it much although  I do have a few good days which is good. My PCP also prescribed a treatment of prednisone for me. The drug got rid of sudden shooting pains I had, but the rest was not changed.

I have also been trying hot yoga for it, for stretching and increasing flexibility.  After an hour of that, I am usually more comfortable for 12 to 36 hours.  I’ll keep that up.

B. Next week, I get to see my NETs specialist, Dr. Eric Liu. We’ll decide on my next scans, blood tests, etc. And, I will talk about a little bit of increase in symptoms.  Which would be more frequent pain in abdomen, more frequent diarrhea, more fatigue. Of course, I’ll get my monthly Sandostatin injection (or jab as the British say which is appropriate for this.)

C. Finally the good stuff.  We love, love, love our new little granddaughter Margot.  She is very different from our grandsons.  All is well, very healthy with her and her mom.

Margot - her first day
New born, already lifting her head!

May we all have the best possible outcomes,

CyDigiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2016 Cyril Ball

Mid Winter Neuroendocrine Conference 2016

Carcinoid Cancer, , ,

Saturday February 6, the University of Colorado will host our Mid Winter Neuroendocrine Cancer Conference.
The agenda and a link to registration are posted on the Colorado Carcinoid Cancer Support Group website:
http://cccsg.net/

This is the first year that the University of Colorado Cancer Center has hosted and arranged this and we are excited to attend it.Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2016 Cyril Ball

A Week in the Life of a Carcinoid Patient

Carcinoid Cancer, Health,

Since liver surgery a year and a half ago, I do not have weeks like this very often.  Prior to that surgery and during the time that I also had atrial fibrillation (AFIB), there were many weeks filled with doctor visits.  Many patients with carcinoid are constantly at doctor’s offices and clinics and emergency rooms.

Today, Monday, I merely have a dental exam and cleaning.  No big deal.  Most everyone has those.

This week, it is time for my annual octreoscan. For an octreoscan, the patient (me) is injected with a somatostatin analogue (usually octreotide) which has been tagged with a radioactive molecule. If there are tissues in the body which have receptors for somatostatin (a hormone we all have in our bodies), the tissue will pickup the octreotide molecules including the tags.  Then radioactivity detectors called gamma cameras can scan the body and create a picture of the body with dark spots where the radioactivity has accumulated.  Often carcinoid tumors have the somatostatin receptors (sometimes not at all and sometimes only some tumors have them and not others in the same person. Then detection is much more difficult).  You can see example pictures here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octreotide_scan.  Carcinoid tumors with receptors will show as darker spots in the pictures. The procedure is that the patient  receives an injection usually thru an IV port in the hand or arm.  4 hours later the patient must lie still with arms over head(uncomfortable) for an hour while the scanners operate.  24 hours after that, the patient must lie in the scanner for 1.5 hours for another scan. Often 24 hours after that, you get another hour or 1.5 scan and sometimes you get another one 24 hours after that. So you will be injected once and scanned up to 4 times in 4 days.

It is a pain.

So my scans and potential scans are scheduled for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

On Wednesday, I also have a cystoscopy to see if my bladder cancer has recurred.  This is totally separate from the carcinoid.  Wednesday is my day for a mediation group as well.  At least that will be pleasant.

On Friday, I also have my every 28 day Sandostatin (a long acting version of octreotide (somatostatin)) injections. These are deep muscle injections to both sides of my rear end.  I might have these every 4 weeks for the rest of my life.  The injections have been delayed a few days because they might interfere with the octreoscan.  Because of that delay, the chills that I feel at evening near the end of the injection cycle are more severe and last longer than normal this week. At least for now, I do not have the severe night sweats that I also had before the liver surgery.

An interesting point about the octreoscan is that I will be detectably radioactive for about 30 days.  They give me a form to use in the airport if I need to travel because the airport security will detect the radioactivity and probably not very welcoming.

I promise to blog about the carcinoid cancer and the bladder cancer test results as soon as I have results.

Namaste,

Cy

EDIT: Tuesday Dec 9.  I just returned from the first octreoscan appointment.  They have changed the procedure!  Today I just got the IV port with injections. The first scan is tomorrow.  Now I must fast every morning before the scans so I have rescheduled the scans from 1 PM to 9 AM for the next 3 mornings.  They say this will improve their images.  I sure hope so.Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2014 Cyril Ball

New Carcinoid Tumor Marker Results.

Carcinoid Cancer, Health, ,

I have gotten my blood test markers back for this quarter. Seratonin, chromogranin A and gastrin are all very low. In fact chromogranin A and seratonin are below the normal range! A few months ago, a PA in oncology told me that he had never seen them this low in a patient!  These markers are tests to see if the disease is progressing/changing.  When I was first diagnosed, seratonin was 7 times higher than it should be. Chromogranin A was 3 times too high. Gastrin was 50% too high.

The numbers have been low since 14 months ago when half my liver with a 6.3 cm tumor was removed. Before the surgery the numbers were in the high-normal and sometimes high range and I was feeling ill.  Obviously the tumor was generating a lot of crap into my blood stream! I felt better than I had felt in years just a day after the 5.5 hour surgery. I still feel great although the diarrhea happens occasionally, usually triggered by some food or activity. 

The next thing will be a CT scan which is scheduled every 6 months.

In the meantime, I continue to feel well.  Night sweats and evening chills occur a few times a month as the monthly injections wear off.  The symptomatic diarrhea happens a few times a month, probably triggered by something I eat or do.  I can live with that!

I am fishing a bit more this year. Meditating, going to AA meetings, Working on music and youtube tutorials.  Laurie and I have been to Mesa Verde to see the cliff dwellings again.  All good stuff.  I did not know how bad I felt, how depressed, until after the surgery.

May we all have the best possible outcomes,

CyDigiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2014 Cyril Ball