Home from the Hospital

There were no further delays, and I had my surgery on Monday.  The surgeon is quite happy with how it went and how quickly I seem to be recovering.

I am home from the hospital – I came home yesterday in fact.  I’m still very sore and taking pain meds, which isn’t a super surprise.  My brother was down for a couple of days, and my parents are still here taking care of me.  I am just taking it very slowly, trying not to leave my recliner too much since I am comfortable in it.

But I got the best news yesterday right before I left.  The pathology report had just come back, and the results are great.  It was stage 1 cancer, and they got it all out – nothing in the lymph nodes or anything.  The surgeon said I was cancer free, in fact.

So now, I need to heal up, which will be a slow process, but then I can put this all behind me.

Surgery Scheduled

Yesterday, I had an appointment with my oncologist. The MRI wasn’t as conclusive as he hoped, but he still doesn’t think the cancer has spread to my liver. So we have rescheduled my surgery for Monday morning. It can’t come soon enough.

Roller Coaster

The last few days have been a roller coaster of emotion.

Last Thursday, I had the CT scan.  Friday, I got the results – they found 5 legions in my liver that they thought were probably cancer.  As a result, they canceled my surgery for Wednesday, and wanted to have me do an MRI and a liver biopsy to make sure.  If it was cancer, then they would be giving me chemo to shrink the tumors before I had surgery.

Naturally, the news hit me hard.

My parents came down Saturday to be a support, which meant scrambling to clean out the spare room since my ceiling was finally fixed.  We spent time Saturday night when they arrived and Sunday afternoon doing that and getting them situated.  Dad has already started fixing the issues with the master bathroom, which is wonderful.  The only thing that’s been working is the shower.  And it means they got to be at church on Sunday when the elders prayed for me, which meant a lot of all of us.

However, at 4:30 Monday, my oncologist called again.  In comparing the CT scan from last week to the ones I had in 2006, they noticed two of the legions are in the same place and the same size.  Now they are thinking that this may be something that happens in livers with blood vessels.  Unrelated to the cancer completely.

As a result, they don’t want to do a biopsy, but they think the MRI will be enough to tell what they are dealing with for sure in my liver.  I have that schedules for Thursday afternoon.

Yes, I’m still bummed that the surgery isn’t happening as planned since I was ready to start dealing with the cancer.  But I’m also so relieved with the most recent news.  I’m trying to tell myself not to get too excited in case they go back to deciding I do have cancer in my liver, but the rest of me is drowning out that part of my brain.

Meanwhile, we are praising God for the Monday afternoon news and praying that the MRI Thursday will confirm it.

Plot Twist

Apparently, 2017 needed another plot twist.

On December 15^th, I was diagnosed with colon cancer.  I still don’t have more specifics than that because the doctors don’t have more specifics than that.

I am scheduled for upper and lower CT scans tomorrow.  They will be looking for any signs of cancer anywhere else.

Assuming those come back clean and I stay healthy, I will be having surgery a week from today on 1/10.  They’ll be removing the tumor, a portion of my colon, and the lymph nodes around them to see if the cancer has spread to them.  I won’t have the results of that back from another couple of days.

Once the doctors know more, then I will know for sure what stage it is and what kind of treatment beyond surgery I will be facing.

What the doctors don’t know yet is they are on a deadline.  I’d already signed up for two mud runs in June, so I will be healthy enough to run them.  In all seriousness, I’m planning on beating this and getting back to my life quickly.

Along those lines, I would truly value your prayers.

I’ll keep you updated as I know more.