TARCEVA !

What is Tarceva ?
insect larvae? - a comic book hero? - a small Greek Island ? - no - no - and no. Tarceva is one of the names of the new chemo drug that I will be switching to. The other name is Erlotinib. Yes, we are in a time of transition with the treatment of lung cancer. The CT Scan from last week showed cancer still growing in my liver. So that's what we got to do - whack the tumours in the liver. The last treatment of cetuximab was on Dec. 5 and I will start treatments with Tarceva on Dec. 28. It is a pill that I will take every day for 30 days.There will be a CT booked towards the end of the 30 days to mark the progress (please pray here). As it stands now, I will not be receiving chemo drug treatments from Dec. 5 to Dec. 28 while we switch the drugs. A nice break. The change over time gives my skin a chance to recover, because guess what a possible side effect is from Tarceva - skin rash. Ha ha ha , that's funny. Not really. Actually, the old drug and the new drug are similar in many ways except Tarceva attacks the cells from the inside of the cell. How ? It just does. TARCEVA!! to the liver tumours and beyond !