September 2019 Blood Test Results

The coolest part of this post is the title. I realized that I need to start adding the year to these monthly blood test result posts.

I had my monthly blood test with Queen Mary Public Hospital yesterday. I’d previously tried to switch my Hong Kong care to them completely due to financial concerns but their inability to communicate in ANY way outside of scheduled appointments introduced too much risk into my treatment (specifically, when they weren’t able to get me my lorlatinib and didn’t tell me in time to have my private hospital order it despite my calls and in-person attempts to confirm in advance).

Since my insurance has renewed for the year and I was able to negotiate a reduced “prescription fee” from Adventist for the compassionate use lorlatinib Pfizer provides for free, I’ve opted to continue to receive the medication there but am getting my blood tests done every other month at Queen Mary to maintain my relationship and save a few grand.

Anyway, I’m telling you this because Queen Mary won’t actually give me a print-out of my results. Instead, after my consultation and after waiting in the booking line, the blood test confirmation line, and the booking line again, I need to head to another building to wait in line to submit a records request form, a line on a different floor to pay the records request free, back to the original line to submit my receipt and form, and then wait 4-6 weeks to be able to pick up the results. Or maybe Adventist will print them out for me next week. There’s definitely some value in the private hospital.

But even if I don’t have the exact numbers, I have the broad strokes:

The awesome news: cancer tumor markers are in the normal range for the second month in a row! And my cholesterol is almost normal. The QM doctor, who is probably my favorite of the five oncologists I’m seeing (cancer slut), noted that my cholesterol wasn’t that good but good for me. Anyway, eager to see the numbers when I get them.

The bummer news: my liver function has crossed a threshold where lorlatinib guidelines require going off additional medication – like my metabolic protocol which I started taking shortly before my tumor markers went down and which I believe is contributing massively to my recovery. While I consulted with the Mayo oncology team about it in July, I haven’t yet told my HK oncologists about it. I need to figure out how to handle it with Adventist next week.

Cancer v Liver Failure… All I know is that I very much did not enjoy dying from cancer when that was happening. Also, I had about 10-12 ounces of wine on vacation in Bali so maybe that contributed. And I haven’t been great at taking my Silymarin supplements. I’ve decided in the course of typing this paragraph that I’m going to monitor my liver function for one month during which I’ll be a little more mindful of my poor, long-suffering liver. Off to buy some dandelion greens for dinner!!

And dudes, main takeaway here is TWO MONTHS IN A ROW WITH NORMAL CANCER MARKERS!!!!

I have high hopes for next month’s scans.