It looks like my treatment with Pemetrexed (Alimta) has come to an end. The infusion at the beginning of June triggered a reaction that I hadn’t had before. And the last one on Wednesday of this week triggered the same reaction in spite of the huge increase in my steroid doses for the day before and day of the infusion. So I ended up being pumped with more IV Benadryl and steroids before the itching and back pain stopped and they would let me go home. I also made sure this time that I had a step-down schedule for coming off the massive steroid dose I had. So today I’m feeling like crap as usual. (Last time I managed to bypass the crappy fatigue day because of the steroid crash.) I’m also noticing some neuropathy today that I haven’t had before. When I was getting the Alimta with the platinum based drug I had some vague tingling in the soles of my feet and not exactly ringing in the ears but a feeling of being underwater. And that’s part of the reason they switched me to the Taxol combination for a while. But this is fingertip tingling now. Damn!
So what’s next? I don’t know. On Wednesday I had a brain CT, which showed no evidence of metastasis – good news! And now I’m scheduled for a PET scan in 2 weeks before meeting again with the oncologist to discuss strategy for the next phase of treatment.
In a way, I’m glad to be going off the Alimta. It was doing nothing to reduce the tumors but was keeping them from growing. And my CEA continues its upward trend, which has my team a little concerned. It’s back up to 50. I know that’s not high, and still much lower than the very first reading I had. My liver enzymes are back to close to normal, so that isn’t what’s raising the CEA. But now we’re venturing back into the unknown and that is scary.
But I’ll survive and cope with this minor setback, which may not even turn out to be a setback. We just have to be patient and see what comes next.