Chemo Update - 6/5/24

From Darby:

Treatment #7 update: Today was supposed to be Clayton’s 7th round of treatment, and although he will no longer be receiving the really aggressive chemo because he finished the prescribed 6 rounds (unless we need to revisit it further down the road), he will still be doing the other chemo infusion Avastin, and continue to take his chemo pills. However, after getting his bloodwork back today, his ANC levels were too low so they were not able to do the Avastin infusion. Instead they gave him a bag of fluids to hopefully bump his numbers back up, and hopefully he will be able to do it on his next round in 3 weeks from today. If ANC levels are too low, it makes it harder for your body to fight infection, which is definitely not something they want to add to the mix for an oncology patient. So hopefully over the next 3 weeks his levels will come up and he can receive it as scheduled at his next appointment. He will still continue to take his chemo pills as planned. Some good news from today, his CEA numbers are still low and haven’t moved much since his last bloodwork 3 weeks ago!! That’s so comforting for us to have those numbers until we have the PET SCAN…and we now have a PET scan date! Clayton will have his full body PET scan on July 9th. This scan will be huge! It will show us where the cancer is throughout his whole body (the CT scan with contrast we’ve done so far was just chest and abdomen). Depending on what the PET scan shows, we will then come up with phase 2 of his treatment. It will help determine which chemo we will add in next and also tell us where (if any!) the other cancer sites might be. Please be praying for the PET scan not to show any other spots other than the ones we already know about!! Please continue to pray for the cancer to show no signs of growing, especially after not being able to receive treatment today. As weird as it is, it’s always a little unsettling to NOT receive treatment because of the fear that the cancer will grow, but we are choosing to believe that God will be greater in our lives than the fear that tries to creep in! We are always SO incredibly thankful for your prayers for our family!! They carry us in so many ways when we are weary ❤️