Hold The Chemo

I was not excited to be restarting the Chemo, so when i received a call 2 days before my start date telling me to hold off on starting with the oral Chemo, because it was taking an unusual amount of time to get the pathology reports from the Liver Cancer back..... I wasn't too disappointed.

Then on the day I was supposed to start I got another call from the Oncologists office telling me not to take the drugs and please come see Her on the next day.

I was surprised when i met with the Dr and she informed me that she was optimistic because the type of cells they found in the liver were a non aggressive type and they feel I can be a candidate for the operation again.! !

Wow- I was then scheduled to meet up again with the surgeon on Tuesday.

I was excited to again feel I had a chance to get rid of the tumor, and a bit scared again at the thought of that big operation.

Post Surgery Plan

So I had to get used to the idea that Surgery was not an option.

Peter Griffin- I call my Tumor Peter Griffin based upon the Family Guy character. I named him almost immediately upon his discovery. My association was that he (the Tumor) was a dopey middle aged guy of very limited intelligence taking up space in my life.

Now my chance to get him outta my belly was gone? Shit!

But the battle goes on! The next meetings were with the encologist, who laid out a Chemotherapy plan that would start right away. She explained in her compassionate way about the cells that were found in the liver and that they were analyzing them.

5 days till chemo-starts up again......oh Joy! How the hell can Peter Griffin be playing such a strong hand??

Well 5 days of trying to feel strong again!!

3/16 Whipple Surgery Day Detail

March 16th was my surgery day! Now that things have calmed down, I can tell the story with some more detail. I was kind of excited and kind of scared shitless :) They would be removing the Tumor, and some surrounding tissue and organs.

My sister Janet had come in to town to give me support from PA, her plan was to stay while I was in the Hospital 7-10 Days and then stay in the city till the end of the month to nurse me through rehab.

The side effects of the Chemotherapy were finally starting to wear away, but I was still quite exhausted and drained, I hated the 9 weeks of Chemo Yikes! But I made it through.

The operation I was having is called the Whipple, the surgeons office prepared me for the good the bad and the ugly of it all, including the wake up in the dark ICU with many tubes in many places etc.

I went in to Memorial Hospital bright and early that morning armed with my sedatives and the support of Peter, Wayne & Janet.......What more could a guy ask for?

I had a sort of horrible experience in the get-ready room with a young nurse who had some "trouble" accessing the port in my chest. Thankfully another Nurse came by and ended the carnage.

But thanks to lots of sedatives while I was being made ready I was asleep BEFORE i saw the inside of the operating room, which makes me happy, I don't really enjoy being awake in those super bright, super chilled rooms while the OR staff does their set up.

So off I went to the 4-5 hour operation!

And then ........I Woke up.........

Surprised I woke up in a very cheery environment, not at all the high-tech dungeon i expected! I had trouble shaking off all the drugs but the room gradually came into focus, I was sitting quite upright in a rolling bed, a nurse was at a desk to my left and a few empty beds were on either side of me. The room was bright and i felt surprisingly well! No breathing tube! And it sure didn't seem like there were other "tubes" in my nether regions...... I could hear the nurse on the phone telling someone that I was awake. I asked her what was up and she said "Your surgeon is on his way to speak with you"

It wasn't long, or didn't seem long before I saw the Surgeon was on his way down the hall followed by Wayne, Peter & Janet. I was happy to see friendly faces although I'm not quite sure the look on their face was happy.

Bottom line was that prior to the big surgery they do laposcopic surgery, while exploring the Dr discovered previously unseen Cancer cells were in my liver. With the cancer spreading to the Liver a decision was made that the Whipple operation was no longer viable.

So now I was feeling better than I thought physically but not so great emotionally. My Abdomen started to hurt from the incisions.........

I was still remarkably hanging in there, I guess I had become used to the ups & downs and twists & turns of this cancer battle, I knew there were more battles to come and I would get my wins :)

First Day of Spring

What an amazing day, the weather was great and it stayed light out for so long. This was taken on the roof of my building, about 35 stories up!

Road block

Hi Guys its me!

The good news is I did not have to proceed with that mega-operation today :)

The bad news is that upon the initial incisions we found Cancer has spread (or had been existing already) in the liver. We cannot remove the tumor now, i'm no longer a candidate, removing the tumor would apparently make it not possible to treat the liver issue with Chemotherapy for an extended period of time.

So I am off to the Oncologist on Tuesday- And we will attack this mother head on!!

Thanks for your love and support,  it's what keeps me strong-

Great Weekend!

All set for surgery this morning @ 11:00am! Thanks to everybody for your prayers and good wishes. I am a lucky man :)) I'll keep you posted on my healing journey.


i will give this blog address to someone, peter or janet etc. to update. i will be out of it for at least a day or two- so hopefully they can keep u updated.

Surgery Date

Ok Surgery set for tomorrow 3/16 Friday @ 11am- They may update the time- but thats what we know so far! Yikes! :)