Time for a Break-up

One of the several amazing people I met during my short trip to Arizona was one who found a way to look at things that I sort of fell in love with. Although her story is a lot more traumatic than mine I was able to relate some to how she called her drugs her lovers. I know I personally fell in love quickly with Xalkori as it was literally saving my life each and every day. He came with me almost everywhere I went and I rarely started or ended a day without him. Sure we had our issues here and there, sometimes leaving me feeling a bit sick in the stomach or bothering my muscles and nerves, but nothing we weren’t able to work through.

Unfortunately our most recent disagreement hasn’t been one we’ve been able to work through. My now ex-lover, Xalkori, has gotten a little lazy and allowed things to get a little out of control so I’ve made the hard decision to break that affair off and move on to the next.

My latest CT scan showed a spot which grew from 3 mm to 5 mm since January. At first we thought this wasn’t anything to really pay attention to as a growth that small can also be just measurement difference or a shift in the image. As my Doc looked further we realized this spot was not on my image from November meaning it was new and enough of a reason to considering switching drugs.

What does this mean? Well big picture this is nothing shocking because we knew at one point my body would stop responding to the initial drug and we’d move onto the next. For me it was still a shock I wasn’t ready for. It’s almost like the first out in the 9th inning of the baseball game you’re 1 run away from winning. (I really don’t like baseball, not sure where that analogy actually came from.)

My new drug is better in that it crosses the blood/brain barrier meaning I’m much better protected from metastasis in my brain. This drug is also better tolerated so knowing I tolerated the first drug without many issues we hope this will continue the same. The general run on this drug is longer too. Xalkori averages about a year (I got about 14 months) and Alectinib lasts about 2 years (I’m on day 2).

So I guess I’m officially on the next phase of this journey. Although on the surface I seem no different it’s been a trying few weeks moving over this small hurdle. My oncologist was still very positive and didn’t see this as anything other than an opportunity to switch to a more superior drug without having to fight any insurance battles and he reminded me he still has several tricks up his sleeve and knows there are more drugs in the pipeline for approval. So I’m doing my best to not let this knock me down too far and see it more as an opportunity to make friends with my “new lover”.