Cancer Journey of a Secular Buddhist

  I met with my main oncologists today, Drs. Costa and Caradonna, and we reviwed my medical history and made a plan.   My brain MRI came back with no new mets and some of the lesions have shrunk.  My LFTs dropped (by about 50%) today.  They are still quite high but moving rapidly in the right direction. I have an appointment with my hepatologist on March 5th and if the blood tests are close to the normal range then they'll start tapering me off the CellCept and Prednisone, and I'll only be on my anti-seizure medication Kepra, which I can stop taking in May. We probably won't do any more Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) infusions; partly because I had a Stage 3 adverse effect as my immune system has been attacking my liver; and partly because it seems that the Pembro has trained my killer T-cells to effectively kill my cancer cells, so I don't need any more immunotherapy at this point. From now on I will just be getting CT and MRI scans every two months and we hope (and ...

I was discharged from the hospital on 1/23 because my liver function blood tests (ALT, AST, Bilirubin, ...) had stabilized. These are indicators of damage and inflammation to the liver. My ALT was around 300 (ten times higher than normal) but it was steady for several days so they discharged me and scheduled a biopsy of my liver for the next week, 1/28. When they ran the labs before my biopsy, my ALT had tripled to 907, about 30 times the normal level so my oncologist asked that I be readmitted to the hospital for monitoring, scans, and daily consultation with a hepatology team.  I got a beautiful single room (Feldberg 887) with a private bath and shower and amazing views of the Muddy River area over the hospital complex. It has below freezing every day and the steam coming from the buildings added an interesting dimension... The liver is a very important organ that does a lot and liver failure can lead to death. They put me on 80 mg of a steroid, prednisone, every morning to try t...