In April of 2013 I returned to Basel for my final treatment. This would be LU177 again and as in February, all went extremely well. It was by far the easiest treatment with mild symptoms of nausea, and feeling tired for a few months.
In July of 2013 my daughter and I took a trip to Nashville to see Dr. Liu and have a GA68 scan which would be a baseline to be able to compare the growth or stability of the tumors in the future. This scan is much more sensitive and revealed mets to bone and brain. More advanced than we had thought since the Octreoscan did not show these tiny tumors. At this point we would wait to see what effect the PRRT had on the tumors, since it is a systemic treatment.
I continued to feel well and not overly tired, but I did need naps and was never able to get myself up to working a full time schedule, as I had hoped. In fact, although I felt a new surge of energy and was able to bike, and take walks, something I hadn't been able to do before treatment, I still noticed when I got tired, I got tired. I needed my naps. Emotionally, I have to say the news of such widespread disease took a toll on me, but I talked myself back into fight mode. I needed to live, really live my life. The diagnosis was again, a gift, not a burden. I had to consider leaving my job, in order to take care of my health and healing, both physical and emotional. I tossed these thoughts back and forth for months before I actually decided it was time to leave my job in July of 2014.
