I start my carboplatin and etoposide today, and then have another round tomorrow. It’s slated through July as there’s no telling when the health insurance companies will be done with their negotiations to make PRRT available.
I’m not afraid of the chemo or the low blood counts or the bone pain. It’s all old hat to me now. I’m afraid that it won’t work, because these drugs haven’t worked for my pancreas tumors before. I had carboplatin and etoposide as part of my augmented ICE before my stem cell transplant for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and at the end of that treatment, my pancreas tumor (which was thought to be lymphoma or inflammation at the time) was still there.
Reading my old blog post and seeing the decision to skip the pancreas biopsy years ago gives me mixed feelings. I don’t think knowing that it was a neuroendocrine tumor would have done anything as far as treatment; the doctors probably would have watched and waited and I don’t think it would have affected the outcome. And ignorance was bliss. I enjoyed thinking I was cancer-free for that year and half.
There is a nagging feeling that this won’t work and that hanging my hopes on the new treatment is also foolish. I don’t know what else to do, and options are running out. I have an appointment for a consultation with Mt. Sinai in a few weeks to see if their center for carcinoid and neuroendocrine tumors has anything for me. I have been disappointed too many times to quell these doubts. At the very least, I was afforded a little bit of hope when a future without hope seems too much to bear.