Chemo Update - 5/15/24

From Darby: Treatment 6 update: Clayton had his 6th round of chemo from his original protocol today. This will be the last round with the heavy duty IV chemo infusion. He is healing really well from his surgery, and Dr. Shalaby was still very encouraged by the outcome of the surgery, despite how rough it was. Because Dr. Baucom was able to remove the primary tumor in his colon, and also a lot of the lymph nodes around the tumor, Clayton’s CEA numbers are still looking good! They went up from 1.2 (right after surgery) to 1.8, but Dr. Shalaby said that it’s normal to fluctuate some, and that it’s still in the normal range. He wants to wait until July for his PET scan because if you do it too soon after a major surgery like that, it can have an inaccurate reading as your body is still trying to heal. So until we have his PET scan, Clayton will continue with his Avastin (the less aggressive of the chemo IV drugs) and his chemo pills every 3 weeks. This is a maintenance protocol and he should feel much better taking the stronger chemo iv out of his protocol. Prayers moving forward would be that, of course, the cancer would not grow or spread after stopping the aggressive chemo, that he wouldn’t feel too bad after this last round (we have a lot of end of the year celebrations coming up!) and that his body would continue to heal from surgery with no setbacks. One thing I have learned during this journey is just how possible it is to feel two VERY different feelings simultaneously- while we do NOT like treatment days/weeks and do not enjoy being here, I am INCREDIBLY grateful that we are STILL here. Grateful that Clayton is STILL fighting, that the chemo is STILL working and that, even though it felt like we had a major setback with surgery…God IS STILL working! Thank you for STILL praying for us!!💕