I'm almost 2 weeks out from what we hope to be my last round of chemo for a while. Maybe until April. That would be a great holiday. I've not written for a while for a number of reasons, but mostly the chemo. Chemo slows me down and makes me stupid. And perhaps I'm bored with myself.
To pick up a dirty old cliche, much used and toyed with, I can see light at the end of the tunnel. To even feel that there is a light end to their tunnel is a blessing for any cancer survivor. I see the old guys at the Juice Factory. They've been at chemo for years, just staying alive. And, as those with life threatening illnesses know, every day is a blessing.
We watched "Click" on DVD last night. The movie has some hilarious moments, causing Dillan and Kimi to laugh uncontrollably. Lots of tremendous bawdy humour, but surprisingly, a message of great importance: live every day, family comes first.
To business, my medical status is I hope nearing the middle of my journey. I have just had a new set of body CT and PET scans. Today I am drinking up my iodine contrast for a dedicated liver CT at the Moffit Cancer Center. Moffit is a good center and the staff are, generally speaking good to me. They're ranked #16 by US News and World Report. #1 in Florida. It's cleaner here than most hospitals or clinics I have been to. I like that.
I won't see my surgeon or his nurse this visit, since there is nothing to discuss. He is waiting for the results of all the tests I am going through. At that time, he will make the decision to go ahead with the liver lobectomy and colon resection. He refers to the current tests as "re-staging studies". It seems odd that he would refer to the stage of my cancer, since I am Stage IV, and they don't have any more advanced stages. There is no chance that the Stage of my cancer will be different since any distant metastases put you at a IV, independent of how large your mets are. The real questions are: is the primary tumour in my colon shrinking and are my nasty little mets shrinking from the chemo treatments. I do beleive they are responding, since my CEA counts have dropped to 20 from an initial 90 or so. Also, I have no awareness of the tumour in my colon. It may have been strange phantom contact, but I have had an awareness in my gut that is not there now. It would be wonderful if we were all ready to go.
That brings me to the surgery. To say that I am worried about the surgery is not completely wrong. I look forward to getting through it as a major step to curing my cancer. I'm as impatient as hell to move forward with something other than chemo, which is turning my body into a litany of undesirable side-effects. The surgery is really the peak of my treatment. Chemo is nasty, but passive. The side-effects will go away with time, as folks tell me. Surgery, though, is not passive. They will open up my abdomen with something probably resembling a Mercedes incision:
However, the incision will probably be longer, since they'll be going after colon as well. I'm looking at some pretty spectacular scarring. Not to mention that I'll be getting some chemo post-surgery, and the chemo has made a mess of some of my other scars. My abs were not much to look at before this: no one ever said what a sexy beast I was without a shirt on. Some, in fact, insisted on me putting my shirt back on. Now at least, I will appeal to ladies with scar fetishes.
The liver resection is still an unknown for me. The surgeon has not yet said what his surgical plan will be. I irks me, a tad, to have such a major part of my treatment plan undefined. It is a combination of my emotional neediness and my engineer's desire for a well defined program: I am irked. Kimi says I should be less concerned about it, but holy crap if you look at what they are planning to do, remove a major part of my liver, I would like to have a sense of what is about to be done. Supposedly, they know what is to be done. This is a major center for this kind of surgery, and my boy, Dr. Scott Kelly, MD, is head of Gastro Surgery. If he doesn't yet know, I would have a hard time trusting anyone who had a plan. I guess that is good. I have trust. He isn't about to do this lightly.
To come up from my deep dive into medical grumbling, my general well-being is good. I am tired, the chemo has taken alot of my energy. However, I feel good. I've been working most days, except when I have tests or chemo. I've more or less stopped losing weight, which has been a challenge since food tastes like poop. After 25 pounds, it's time to stop. I could list my side effects, but some of them are unsavory. Unfit to print. The nice thing is I still look handsome. I look in the mirror, and I say to myself, or anyone who will listen, "I'm a handsome guy".
