Cycle 8 Day 14
Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is a blood marker important in diagnosing and monitoring especially colorectal cancer, but also can be meaningful in other cancers. A blood test messing CEA level can be an important part of diagnosis because the test is easy to do (simple blood test with no preperation requirements). It is also useful for monitoring for reoccurance post treatment, for the same reasons. It's part of my regular bloodwork because it can also be used to monitor if treatment is working. In all these cases it isn't used alone, because things as diverse as smoking, autoimmune diseases and liver diseases (because of the cancer, I have fatty liver disease).
My CEA level has been within the "normal" level throughout my treatment. I'm under the impression that, until today, it hasn't been particularly useful to my oncologist. Or, more likely, it hasn't been useful to her in explaining my condition to me. Liver and kidney monitoring numbers have been discussed much more this round of treatment.
Until today. In the last two weeks my CEA level doubled, putting it comfortably over the "abnormal" level. My understanding is that the number itself can tell you that tumors have grown, but cannot tell you how much. For that, you need other tests, in my case another CT scan. I know, from experience, that in a critical situation, you can get a CT scan same week. Mine is scheduled for mid March, after two more chemo cycles and at least one more blood test.
Because it's a couple weeks until the CT scan, at a time we were already planning to have a CT scan, I'm not particularly anxious about this news. This could be the point where my current chemotherapy is no longer effective, which would be unfortunate, but is also inevitable. It's served me well for a year and a half. There are more chemltherapies available to me.
I'm not anxious or losing sleep over this, it's not good news, terminal cancer is all about inevitabilities and I've had countless hours to process this. I share a lot, but no one wants to read about diahrea, so you never hear about one of the most important symptoms/side effects. I've had diahrea continuously since October, except when I take Imodium. It's impossible to tell how much is the cancer and how much is the chemo, but it's been getting worse, slowly but continuously. I'm not happy to hear this, but it's not terribly surprising.
For now, this doesn't change anything. I'm still getting my regularly scheduled chemotherapy. I'm still going to live my life as best I can. I'm not more anxious than I was yesterday.
From the comments
Tara Kraft:i really appreciate this information. I have genetic risks, and friends and family dealing with cancer, and often i think people want to make the progress info generic to spare us details but (even though I now every person is different) this just helps me understand the kind of decision making and analysis that is happening.