362 days

It was May 11 almost a year ago when I first heard the words "you have cancer"  Although not in exactly the same place or the same manner, 362 days later (Wednesday May 8 2013) I heard those words again.  Yes you are reading correctly.  

Last wednesday I went in for a PET-CT scan to see how things were going since surgery.  Today I met with my Oncologist to get a report of the scan.  He wasn't in the room for more than a handful of seconds before he told us that I had a reoccurance of cancer.  There are 4 spots in the liver.  Two reside on the left side and two on the right and those range in size from 8 mm to 15 mm.  I also have a spot outside the liver.  They think this is a Lymph Node which has grown to the size of 4 cm or 1.5 inches.  Lymph nodes normally are not visible with the naked eye from what one of my surgeons told me.  The fact that this is 1.5 inches now and was not visible 2 and a half months ago during surgery tells you how quickly this has grown. 

Treatment for now will be the same chemo I was getting before, only with a new drug added in.  My oncologist talked about other possible treatment plans in the future and didn't outrule surgery.  He wants to get started asap with chemo to keep this under control and keep it from spreading to yet another organ.  His plan is for me to start my first chemo cycle a week from tomorrow with another in two weeks.  I of course get a pump to wear home for 2 days and then get the weekend to recover as best as possible.  Let's be honest I was really tired of chemo the last time I had it and thought The surgery would be the last "event" for a while.

I had a lot of information thrown at me today and 7 hours later I'm still trying to process it all.  I'm tired and hope I can rest for at least a short time tonight.

--Kent