Health Update

Wednesday was, theoretically, my last round on this medication concoction. One of the medications, of the three can cause permanent neuropathy in my extremities, meaning I can lose feeling and have constant tingling in my fingers, toes and nose! No bueno. That one I won't take again, or at least for some time. We might go back to it in the future if needed, but not until my cold neuropathy is completely gone.

Today is disconnect day! If I haven't explained that before, it means my pump I take home with one of the chemo meds, gets removed, and I get fluids (because I sleep so much I don't drink enough). After that, I get to drive to my insurance's clinic and get a CT scan and see how things are going. We're crossing our fingers for more tumor shrinkage!

Tuesday, I have a consultation with a surgeon after which I'm getting my case re-presented to the tumor board. (That's like a big melding of the best minds in the Carbone Cancer Center), who will decide based on both the CT results and the meeting with me if surgery is indeed the best next step. If it is, it's a MAJOR surgery.

My nurse navigator who is basically amazing went over some of the details with me which weren't stressing me out at all until she mentioned the tube down my nose and throat and then I got a little bit stressed. If this surgery is the way to go, they'll be opening up my abdomen and getting all the tumors they can see, on my liver, in my ovary, in my lymph nodes and of course in my colon. This is a very basic description of what happens, but it's very major and will leave a GIGANTIC scar when all is said and done. After they've done the surgical removal of what they can see, they then will basically give my pelvic area a bath with hot chemo (they have to close me up temporarily to do this) which will last 2 hours. Then they open me back out to remove the hot chemo and close me up permanently. My nurse navigator thinks that I will only need a temporary ostomy (that's where I go #2 in a bag) rather than a permanent one, based how big where my colon cancer is, so that was, for me a sigh of relief. We'll however, be double checking this with the surgeon.

Long story short, I'll likely have my CT results this afternoon through my portal that I can personally compare to my last CT results, and will get answers from the tumor board about what next steps are when we're on vacation in St Louis with the family.

I promise to update when I know more, but knew that I needed to get this up on the blog. The most important thing is that, things are most definitely moving in the right direction and after meeting a new local friend I have even more tangible hope that I will meet NED (No Evidence of Disease) sooner rather than later.