99% good news

Got m most recent CA-15-2 score (i.e., "tumor markers" score) today. 99! Under a hundred! It was 3,000+ the first time in April, and it's consistently dropped each test since, and now it's UNDER A HUNDRED!

Context: I get a CT scan every three months. Most times, some mets are smaller; some mets are the same. Nothing has been bigger in the same place, at all. Here's this month's almost unreadable summary:

* No significant change in appearance of pulmonary nodules.
* Decreased size of retroperitoneal node.
* Decreased size of left pelvic mass.
* Stable left adrenal mass.
* Stable L5 and T2 blastic metastases

Every few months, I get an MRI as well, so they can keep watching my brain tumor, which also continues to shrink. It's about 5mm x 5mm, now, down from 13mm.

So, like I said, 99% good news. The bad news is that Dr Reddys said today that she's thinking three more months of chemo after my tumor markers are within range, (which she figures is 3-6 months away) so the end of this round of chemo is 6 to 9 months away. Which right now, seems like a very long time: Between May and August '11.

Which honestly, isn't so bad; we've done a lot to make chemo work. But my hip hurts, a lot. And I can't get cortisone shots until after chemo. I can't get surgery until months after chemo. And I'm tired of hurting. That's the 1%.