When the weather is gloomy...so am I. Not sure if it is just the weather of even missing my Mom or even just being 'home alone' that makes my mind wonder.
I had bloodwork drawn last week and just picked up the copy of it today right after my PET scan.
All levels are normal - except for my potassium, serum...it's a bit low 3.3 (when the normal range is: 3.5 - 5.2.
I can fix that by eating more or just eating banana's! Not a fan of them....
My CEA is still high 10.1 (normal range: 0.0-4.7). The last test it was 24...and remembering when I began all this it was almost 400.
(this number is a tumor marker and it still may go down on its own)
My oncologist did another test Carbohydrate Antigen 19-9 (THANK GOD FOR THE INTERNET)...that too is a tumor marker and it's in the normal range!!!! It's 13 and the norm is 0-35. The following is a description of this.....
I will get my PET scan results tomorrow (about this time - 4 pm)....
CA19-9
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CA19-9 (carbohydrate antigen 19-9, also called cancer antigen 19-9[1][2] or sialylated Lewis (a) antigen) is a blood test from the tumor marker category.[3] It was discovered in patients with colon cancer and pancreatic cancer in 1981.[4] "According to Takada et al. (1993) (Takada et al., 1993) sialyl Lewis a antigen is mainly responsible for adhesion of human colon, pancreas and gastric cancer cells to the endothelium" as well as bladder cancer.[5] Increased levels of CA19-9 are also found in non-malignant conditions, such as Mirizzi's syndrome and diseases of the bile ducts and liver.[6]
Guidelines from the American Society of Clinical Oncology discourage the use of CA19-9 as a test for cancer, particularly pancreatic cancer. The reason is that the test may be falsely normal (false negative) in many cases, or abnormally elevated in people who have no cancer at all (false positive). The main use of CA19-9 is therefore to see whether a pancreatic tumor is secreting it; if that is the case, then the levels should fall when the tumor is treated, and they may rise again if the disease recurs.[7]
In patients who lack the Lewis antigen (a blood type protein on red blood cells), which is about 5% of the population, CA19-9 is not elevated in pancreatic cancer even with large tumors because they have a deficiency of a fucosyltransferase enzyme that is needed to produce CA19-9 as well as the Lewis antigen.[7]
