During pregnancy, my cancer lab values were elevated and I was eager postpartum to get my labs re-drawn, check for tumor markers and complete any screening that I couldn’t do while being pregnant. About 10 days postpartum I had my labs re-drawn and an appointment at Cancer Care Northwest. Returning to Cancer Care Northwest after having a baby hits a little different. What if the cancer is back? What if I have to start chemotherapy again? What if I have to go through all of this again with a newborn baby? What if I leave her behind? Trying to be positive, but also realistic…
To my surprise, my cancer labs and tumor markers were even more elevated postpartum than during pregnancy. My oncologist sent a message through Mychart stating “I’m uncertain what to think of your elevated CA 2729 due to you being postpartum, and would like to redraw in approximately one month if that’s okay with you?” Not much else to do I guess.
My oncologist has been also been drawing what they call a Signatera lab. This lab draw is not currently covered by insurance, however there is no way to bill for it so it is technically free as of right now. Signatera is a lab draw that checks for cancer and tumor markers that is more sensitive than CEA and CA (standard cancer screening lab draws). Signatera is sent off and takes approximately two weeks to get results. So after my lab draw with elevated tumor markers approximately 10 days postpartum I patiently waited for the Signatera lab results to come back before panicking or making any decisions. Approximately two weeks later, the Signatera lab came back “not detected”. A huge relief on my end. However, the elevated CA lab still sits in the back of my mind …so now we wait another month to redraw the CA lab to review and discuss next steps. My oncologist did not recommend any further imaging or screening at this time due to the fact that all of my previous MRIs have come back negative. Unfortunately, cancer screening is a wait-and-see kind of game, so in the meantime, I will continue all cancer preventative measures such as diet and exercise. However, due to having a C-section exercise is on hold for now.
Mandafit 