Seth's Info

Well my blog update is long overdue, and I would like to wish everyone a Happy 2007. Personally, it still feels a little weird to think that it’s the year 2007! We had an uneventful New Year’s here, and the kids are now back in school and Jenny is back at work.

Last week I traveled to New York (on the 27th) to get C/T scans done of my chest, abdomen, and pelvis. I then met with Dr. D'Adamo the next day. Unfortunately, the scan results were not as good as I would have hoped. In general, the tumors had grown, although there were several areas of disease that had appeared to shrink. Because I have several tumors in my pelvis and abdomen, as well as lesions on my pelvic bones and spine in several places, comparing one scan to the next can be difficult. The other bad news was that there was disease present in the lung, which has not been previously noted. Some of the nodules showed signs of necrosis (dying), even though they were larger than in October. I am waiting to receive a paper copy of the radiologist’s report to really try to understand what is really going on (It’s hard to get a real accurate idea just on a conversation with the doctor since they are just summarizing). But the doctor's general description was more negative than usual.

After some discussion, we decided to stay the course for another month on Sorafenib, and then do another set of scans in late January. He did give me the option of switching to something else at this point, but I really would like to give it a chance before switching to something more toxic. So for now I am hoping that we’ll see some better results by the end of the month. If not we'll look at some different chemo drug combinations, or perhaps another trial (although I don't have one in mind yet).

One of the reasons I have been slow to post since my visit is that it has taken me some time to “bounce back” since last week. For starters, travel via car, train, taxi and subway really wears me out after a couple of days. Also, although I can’t say I was expecting any significant tumor shrinkage, it does get tough to keep getting scanned and not see better results. That is the reality of metastatic sarcoma – there is no identified cure. Aside from complete resection of the diseased tissue, there is no known treatment that eliminates the disease completely. Over the last 9 months I have accepted this fact, but it’s still hard to live with. I had to think about that for a few days, but a week back at home has helped ground me again and we’ll keep plugging away.

My brother Rob is heading for a visit all next week and will take me to my appointment in New York on Thursday. It will be nice to have a few days with him in a more relaxed environment.

We have a big surprise planned for the kids coming up, but we haven’t told them yet. In the interest of fairness I won’t reveal it here now, but you can expect me to do so in the coming weeks.

That’s all for now, we enjoyed the many holiday cards we received over the last month. (I’m sorry to say we never managed to get a card out). Stay in touch and again, Happy New Year!

Seth