New treatment has begun on Wednesday 2 May: GEMTAX
I went in for a consultation with the doctors, to hear the plans for the next treatment. It was set to be initiated on May 17. By the way, the Sarcoma Fellow did say the Pazopanib is not off the table forever. If my heart improves over time, it may be an option in the future. After my medical exam , the doctor felt that another strategy was required. I then had bloods done and no-one could get a line in for an IV drip. Four puncture wounds later, we just stuck to doing bloods.
Had a break for lunch at Treasury Place Cafe - very nice, then went into hospital- literally, signed in , got into bed, then waited to get Chemotherapy. Apparently, this was the way to get me started as the CDU (Chemotherapy Day Unit) was booked out completely. The actual chemo took a while to begin. Again, trouble getting a line in - 6 puncture wounds for the day! It was quite painful once things got started, they had to stop the drip line, then slow it right down for me-a complete surprise as I experience no pain with chemo last year.
The new chemotherapy is one that is well known in the United States it is called GEMTAX., and is the first standard treatment applied for Leiomyosarcoma cases.It usually requires payment when given to patients in Australia, but yet again, Peter mac is covering the costs for me. This includes the post-chemo injections that I will have to have to avoid potential white blood cell decline around the day 7, 8, 9, 10 mark during each chemo cycle.
What is GEMTAX?
It is a combination treatment of two types of chemotherapy drugs called Gemcitabine and Paclitaxel.
My regime will be to have 6 cycles of GEMTAX. Each cycle lasts for 3 weeks. My treatment will be set for Day 1 and day 8 treatment every cycle, bloods to be done on Day 8 to check if chemo is safe to go ahead that day. Day 9 will be the day for the injection to help with white blood cells.
This cycle, they are having difficulty squeezing me in so I am going in Day 9 (Thursday 10 May for chemo instead of day 8). I also have the Cardiologist check up on Friday 11 May to see how I have responded to the Coversyl heart medication.
There will be side-effects , but so far just some fatigue initially, so I took an extra day off work. I expect some similar effects to last year, but one extra one is hypersensitivity in extremities - I have to avoid very cold and very hot fingers and toes as a way to watch for this one. I will have hair loss again, shame I went to work without the wig oh well, vanity, vanity all is vanity!!!!!
Cheers,
Georgia
Ohhhhh G, Sorry to hear about the IV stuff ups. I suppose all you can do is keep up those fluids beforehand & keep warm. Maybe a pic line could be coming soon.
ReplyDeletehope to see you soon!
LOve rach
I know what works for one person might not work for another, but I wanted to tell you that Gem/Tax worked great for me back when I got it. It beat back the cancer pretty good!
ReplyDeleteI remember my doctor telling me that it was the gold standard for LMS, the best thing they had to offer me. So good luck to you!