CA 125 Frustration

We got the report on yesterday's tumor marker blood test, and unfortunately it shows a rise in the numbers. (Remember this fact: it's only a number. God alone knows what He's planning to do. This is our committed position.)

Following are some boring details; please don't feel you need to wade through this paragraph. The frustration is that this particular lab is the one that switched to a new automated method, and as of September 1 they no longer do an "old method" evaluation as well. That means we don't have a good trend comparison. In August the new method # was about 80 while the old method # was 50. Now the new method # is about 100. That sounds like a huge rise. But the lab director I talked to said it's impossible to extrapolate from new to old method, so she wouldn't even guess how significant this rise is in comparison to the old method numbers that have hovered in the 50s since late spring. She was wonderful, and offered to go find my sample and run it again tomorrow by the old method so we'd have a more accurate comparison.

So all I have to report now is that the number has gone up but we don't know how badly. I won't know by tomorrow morning's posting, and maybe not at all until Friday. At least (assuming she can find my sample) the oncologist should have good comparative numbers before we see him on Tuesday.

God is still our peace and our Rock.

Carol