It Came from India... in Pill Form

I just had confirmation from the Canadian pharmacy providing the generic Gleevec, and am waiting for an email from them with a form for the payment information etc.  Apparently once the amount is over $1,000 they require a written and signed form to be used rather than just have the information provided over the phone.

The pharm agent let me know the pills would be shipped from India which was a bit of a surprise.  Hopefully there won't be any significant delay getting these to me.  The site indicates a 3 - 5 week delay is typical for delivery.

Okay so I feel like making some crack about spicy pills, or curried cancer proteins (they're the best!), but I will refrain since my only viable (and most welcome) option is coming from a country I've wanted to visit for a long time.  And I suppose it would be best to have a self imposed moment of restraint for... wait for it... good karma :).

Who knows... if congress decides I can't order these anymore to protect an overdue patent in the states, I'll just have to figure a way to fly overseas to pick it up.  Of course, I would guess a trip to Canada might be more feasible, but I might as well imagine it... I wonder if there is a slow boat or merchant marine option to get to India and back?

----Mid Blog compositional update---

I've just received and filled out the form.  I had to take a photo and save it in photoshop as a pdf since I don't have a scanner, or fax machine at home.  Hopefully they won't have any issue with me sending the information in this manner.  It's a digital reproduction of my signature no matter how they get it, so it should be fine.

Homemade Pizza Sauce tip... never start your base red sauce using tomato paste... It's WAY too thick and flavor-wise overpowering, and takes too much liquid to smooth into something resembling what you want to use.  Crush up some tomatoes and start from there.  Just sayin'.  And I have to say thank you to the My Drunk Kitchen girl for making the last couple of weeks fun (a very funny video blog with the occasional nsfw vocabulary).

My best wishes to everyone, and as it's the end of the year allow me to wish you a (pick one... and only one... no greedy holiday grabbers...):

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happi Tenno tanjobi, Happy Kwanzaa, and for the rest of ya'll Happy Festivus!

Mixed Bag of Nuts

Okay

So I just got back into the Rogue Valley after my appointments up in Portland this week.  The PET scan results were a bit of a mixture of good and not great news.

• Good News - Lung and Lymph Node cancer mets did not show any growth.  Much reason to be glad with this result, as this is the first time we've seen that result after a scan!
• Medium News - the Lung Mets had a higher metabolic rate than in the previous scan.  Dr Lufkin indicated this wasn't something to get concerned about, so while I'm mildly inclined to think "say what?" to this, I will choose to take his perspective and make it my own.
• Lame News - the newer met that showed up in my front right hip area on the last scan unfortunately had some growth.  Not a massive amount, but it pretty much is like drinking white wine with a great steak... it's just not a good thing.

Dr Lufkin hasn't heard back from the drug reps he contacted for sponsorship help, so I showed him the Canadian pharmacy with the generic Gleevec.  After looking over the page Ki had sent me with the state of Minnesota's seal of approval (they went up and inspected a few specific pharmacies to ensure the medication was as advertised), he agreed that our next best course of action would be for him to send a prescription for me up to the pharmacy Ki and I'd chosen, and have them contact me for payment (he'll do this next week, after one last attempt to contact the drug reps).

So I'll be buying my medication at $1260 for 3 months of pills.  We'll be rescanning in 2 months after I start taking them to see the progress.  The irony here is I would likely have a $300 (ish) copay for any of the 3 drugs which we would be using if the insurance provider would agree to them as "appropriate for melanoma" so the out of pocket cost of the Canadian generic, while not cheap, isn't terribly much more.

Dr Lufkin did say that another round of Yervoy wasn't out of the question, but since we had the hip met grow some and saw no reduction in the other spots, Gleevec would be the best next step to take.  Now I do love me some Yervoy... so if I can get another 4 infusions, I'll be a happy camper (okay it was just so much nicer than IL2 that I have to love it more, and while it didn't deliver the maximum result, it certainly did help, and I'm happy about that).

Still waiting on final approval from the disability pay, but I'm expecting that in the next few weeks, so I should be able to get off the cards and pay some of them down to a more realistic balance...  Christmas gifts are going to be in short supply from me this year I'm afraid.

On a non craptastic note... 

I had a fun reunion with my friend JaneAnne Peterson (from college days).  We had lunch at a very Portland appropriate sandwich shop (green bean and beet sandwiches :)  and then a nice sweet bite at a pastry shop.  She's done super well, and we caught up on our families, friends and such.  

And I have a great partner named Ki still...(thank goodness), in case anyone wasn't quite aware.  He's working on his first rotation post teaching, and it's in anesthesia. Which apparently is a total gas (raw raw raw). 

Bottom line - still feeling quite well, and I'm planning to slowly get the gym back into my schedule now that I'm not saving my system's energy for the Yervoy to use.   I think enhancing my fitness at this point will be really helpful in a few ways.

All Clear on the No-No Zone Front

I just finished my follow-up appointment with Dr Ahmad (the surgeon who removed my new rectal tumors a little over a month back), and the healing process looks solid. Also he couldn't detect any additional oddities or bumps etc. in the area. He did ask me to come back in a couple of months to ensure I'm still clear, which I really appreciate. I'm glad to have a proactive surgeon for this.

While this isn't a "forever there will never again be another tumor disguised as a hemmhroid" announcement, it does mean I can reasonably expect to not have to deal with this again in the foreseeable future! You know somethings you don't mind learning about, and encountering more than once (ice cream, lasagna, waterslides, Crater Lake, a heavy metal Donna Summer tribute band...), but this is something I'd be just peachy to never deal with again.

The PET scan to see my post-Yervoy progress is slated to happen in a couple of hours, so in-between appointments, I dropped in on George and Tara (my fave and oh so fab IL2 nurses). It was very nice to catch them up on the progress etc. They both feel I should get a puppy post PET scan rather than a hamster... I'm going to ride that PET scan producing a puppy joke for a bit, so bear with me if you will :)

Also just one comment, if I direct you to check out the blog for the latest information, it's likely I've had a few folks asking about things which are already posted here that same day, and while I would never want someone to feel like I'm put out to go into the latest details with them, the reason I started this blog was to give the most up-to-date details with regards to my cancer treatment progress. So please don't be upset if I provide the link to you rather than retype the same information multiple times.

Much love to all, and I'll be posting the scan results this Friday as well as the outcome of Dr lufkin's (my oncologist) requests for drug sponsorships. If he isn't successful I'll find out his perspective on the Canadian pharmacy with the generic Gleevec.

A PET scan for Christmas

Just a quick update here.

Feeling decent and hoping to hear about the disability claim soon...

I finally got insurance approval for my next PET scan which will take place on Dec 13th along with my follow-up appointment for my surgery from last month.

Then on the 16th I'll meet with Dr Lufkin (my oncologist) to discuss the scan results and see what progress he's had with lobbying the drug companies for medication support. If he hasn't had any luck and the scan results are showing the cancer mets didn't respond enough to the Yervoy (I kind of think they should have been called Yankees or at least named for a baseball team with more success but I suppose Yankastatic Cancer would sound weird), we'll discuss getting the generic Gleevec option out of Canada.

Since I haven't spoken to him about this option yet, I can only assume he'd support it?

Cross whatever body parts give the most luck for the coming scan y'all, this one could be a really important moment. But if it's not good news we'll keep on truckin' (you might need to have been around in the 70's to get that one...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_on_Truckin%27_(comics)