Casey Quinn – My story about surviving cancer

Sorry for the delay in updating everyone. I was unable to find the disc that had my site files located on it. So I had to spend a few hours today rebuilding some of it and now I can finally let you all know the results.

First, the MRI. I went in last Thursday to have it done. I’m used to some really long MRIs, and this one seemed to only take an hour or so. Probably even less. What a treat! The actual scan was in the morning, and the results with Dr. Trusheim were in the afternoon. As usual, the waiting game was the toughest part. Dr. Trusheim is my Minneapolis doctor, so he wasn’t involved in the surgery or radiation, but still has a good sense of what to expect in seeing tumors post-treatment. And he thinks things are looking good. The tumor didn’t change when they injected me with a highlighting material. And as far as I could tell, it was looking the same as it did last time at MD Anderson. These films are being passed along to the doctors in Houston as well so they can do a better comparison against the last films, but I’ll take Dr. Trusheim’s word as good for now.

The EEG, which was passed along to Dr. Slopis in Houston, had him a little more concerned about the seizures. I got a call on Monday and was told to start taking a new drug, Keppra, along with the Trileptal I’ve been taking already. My first thought was how the number of pills just keeps adding up. I’m now up to 11 pills a day. Five in the morning, five in the evening, plus one allergy pill. Yuck! The new drug is often paired with Trileptal. In fact, I was told that it’s pretty rare for adults in my situation to be taking Trileptal alone… that it is usually paired with another drug. So I started taking Keppra along side it on Monday. It’s too soon to tell anything, but I’m definitely hoping that the seizures come to an end. It’s about time for me to get a break.

Work is keeping me busy at the moment. I’m still getting back into that… trying to fit back into the career world, slowly able to let go of the medical one. And that feels pretty good.

I also wanted to share some news of a friend of mine. I worked with him at my old job. He’s a wonderful guy that has been fighting osteosarcoma — the same rare cancer I had in my hip, leg, and jaw. He’s been treated in Minneapolis for a couple years, and I recently found out he is in Houston at MD Anderson, seeing Dr. Pete Anderson. The news has given me confidence that he’s in the best hands. He went down a couple weeks ago for surgery… here’s his story. Keep him in your thoughts.

I’ll update soon on the success of these pills. I’m off for now. Love you.

Casey

Tags: drugs, mri, trusheim

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