I thought I was supposed to take my last dose of Vorinostat tonight, but have been asked to continue for one more day. I won't be sad to stop the vorinistat. It's been tolerable, although I have had both constipation and diarrhea, as well as some nausea and fatigue. But as I said originally, I think I can manage almost anything for two weeks.
Tomorrow I begin the second round of PET scans and I think that has something to do with continuing vorinistat for one more day. I have the FES PET scan on Monday and the FDG PET scan on Tuesday.
REFRESHER: The FGD PET scan is done while I am fasting, to measure the uptake of glucose to - presumably - malignant tumors and metastases. The FES PET scan measures the uptake of estrogen to the malignant cells. I'm taking the vorinistat to re-sensitize my cancer to estrogen. On Tuesday I will start taking Femara, an aromatase inhibitor, for six weeks. It's job is to begin reducing the number and size of metastases.
I took Femara at the very beginning of my life with metastases in 2002 and I think it worked for about two and a half years. When I saw Dr Gadi last week, he told me he wanted to use either Aromasin or Arimidex for the next trial step of aromatase inhibitor. I asked if it made any difference that I'd been on Femara the longest, and he consulted with the clinical trial coordinator. Lo and behold, I will start Femara.
Femara worked for a long time, and was very tolerable. Let's hope it will do so again!
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Hi Jill,
ReplyDeleteI came across your blog and have been reading it for the past hour. Your story if very fascinating and moving.
I am a journalist living in Vancouver, Canada and was wondering if I could contact you to ask you a few questions?
My email is: k.dangerfield@gmail.com