A major change in plans!!!

Well recovery is going pretty good. I'm still hurting, but the incision is healing up fairly well. I went to see the oncologist in Thursday. When he walked in, he was reviewing my case. After a few, he looked up and said "wow, you're making this look easy!" That's a pretty cool thin to hear from your doctor when, at one point, you were given 18 months to 2 years... I asked him about a remark the oncology surgeons PA said. She said "you've taken a strange path to getting here." At the time I didn't bother to have her clarify. When I asked Dr Campbell, he just smiled and said he wasn't really sure, but maybe she was alluding to the fact that not too many years ago, they wouldn't have done anything with my case. I would have been considered too far gone....

My how things change. The original plan was 12 rounds of chemo, liver recection, more chemo, colon reception, more chemo, microwave oblation on liver. Dr Campbell has decided to change things up a bit, based on my body's response so far. I've already had the 12 chemo treatments, and 70% of my liver removed, but instead of more chemo, I'm going right back to surgery after I'm healed up from the liver. (4 to 6 weeks). At that point, I may not even need more chemo!

That's the best news I've gotten in a long time. I was dreading going back to the drugs. Dr Campbell loves to use analogies. Being that the MLB postseason is around the corner, this is what he used to explain my situation. "Chemo got you the first base. The liver was second. We take the colon to get you to third, and you're staring at home."

One of the reasons for the change in plans is based on what the geneticist found. I do have a known gene mutation. Oddly enough, it's one that up until a couple of years ago, they didn't even look for it in  men. They didn't think we could get it. In women it generally shows up as breast cancer, and men as either colon or prostrate. This is good and bad news. On the bad news side, obviously, is that my kids have a high probability of  having this mutation as well. The good news is we know about it, so we can watch out. Also, this particular one is easier to beat than most.

They are going t send off some of my living tumor cells to a group that will test it against all 298 known cancer fighting drugs. This targeted therapy circumvents one of the hurdles the FDA puts up. Using this method, I can be prescribed any  drug that shows it will re
Act, even if the FDA never approved it for colon cancer. I may not even need this, but it's nice to have a ace up the sleeve!!!
My sister and parents will need to have this genetics test run now as well to see where it started, and whether or not my cousins (on one side or the other need to be warned) it would be easiest if the mutation started with me, and  no one else needs to worry about it. We'll see.

A lot more has happened over the past couple of weeks, but this is the highlights. Maybe I'll throw out a bit more later...

Again, thanks for  all the prayers, and help that we've received in so many ways!!!

Be gone with you, liver!

Ok, so here's the latest. The surgery was considered a success. They removed the entire right lobe, my gallbladder, and a large portion of my left lobe. (70% of my liver in total) That's more than they had originally planned, but the feel really confident that they got all of the cancer with the exception of the one tumor that has to be zapped electrically. They actually call the procedure "microwave oblation" I'm not sure how Vinney Johnson was involved...

That procedure with have to wait for another day. They used a chevron a shaped incision. Its about 2 FEET wide! There a 22 sutures holding is shut. It looks pretty horrible. I've been sleeping a ton lately.  They have me in some pretty heavy narcotics right now. So I swing back a forth between so stoned, u can barely talk, and do much pain, I can barley talk. (guess which one I like better!)

The geneticist came in to talk to me in the hospital. If you recall, there were a series of tests that they wanted to run to see if I had a predisposed mutation that would have led to all
of this.  Turns out that the answer is yes, but in a somewhat surprising way. I came up positive on a marker that they have only been testing in men as of vert recently. They only saw this one in women with breast cancer in the past, but now are seeing it in men with prostrate and colon cancer. That still does not mean this is how I got it, they will never know for sure, but now that u have the mutation, my sister and parents need to be checked. I may be the "patient 0" or it could have come from father up the line. My parent need to be check so the proper set of cousins are warned. It's very possible that no one else will have this mutation, and even if they do, it's not a guarantee of getting cancer. So we'll wait and see on that one.

I meet with the surgeon next week to get passed back to the oncologist. Still need colon surgery and that last liver procedure. And more chemo... Overall, things are going pretty good. Better than expected. Thanks for all the prayers. I'm doing so much better than I deserve though all this.

Cheers!