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newbie
Hello my name is Shirley and I have this amazing man in my life who was told he has stage IV EC on Oct 2009. So much has happened in these past months. I will attempt to give you a short summary. He was told he was not a canidate for surgery because he had lymph node involvement and also a spot in he right buttocks that…
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FDA Clears Herceptin-Chemotherapy Combo for Metastatic Her2+ Gastric Cancer
All, Recently we were having a discussion on the board about HER2 gene testing and the use of herceptin in gastric junction/esophageal cancers. Some folks had been told this was experimental and not a proven treatment method for espohageal cancer. Well, on October 20th the FDA approved herceptin as a treatment in gastric…
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Question about FolFox Treatment and Platelets
Hi, My dad is considering what to do next to fight the EC - he is 78. He was Stage III, T3, N2, MO initially and after chemo (Caboplatin and Taxol) and radiation the tumor had shrunk and the lymph nodes showed NED in an April Pet scan. Then in July the pet scan showed that there was no activity in the lymph or esophagous…
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My husband has recurrent esophageal cancer
In Feb 2009 my husband, who had problems swallowing, had a Min evasive esophagectomy. He was stage 11B. No chemo or radiation was given, just the surgury He has stayed healthy until Approx June of 2010. He then started to lose weight and started choking on his food. It kept getting stuck. On Aug 5th of this year he went…
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In My Thoughts
Hello everyone. I don't post on here often right now. Thankfully my mom is dealing with her EC as well as can be expected right now. She just had her esophagus stretched last week and had some scar tissue around her stents removed. Other than some issues with her feeding tube she has been doing ok. Her latest CT scan…
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Jim-farewell
I said goodbye to my best friend today. Jim lost his battle and did so with grace and courage. We could all use him as an example, not only as how to live, but also, how to depart from this earthly life. Mike and Betsy were with me and, with tears of our sadness and some chuckles of laughter, we spent Jim's final hours…
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More Good News
We had our appointment with Oncologist on Tuesday to review most recent scan. He said there is no indication of a recurrence of the esophageal cancer...YEA! However, the scan does show some nodules in the lungs that he said were typically a residual of bronchitis or pneumonia but because they were also noted in the…
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Scan results good!
Latest scan shows no new growth. No shrinkage, but no growth. I am greatful for this. Steve is doing well and handling chemo well. I have a lot to be thankful for!
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Another trip to Sloan with Dad
All, The last scan for dad wasn't good. He was unable to take the full 5FU treatments because his platelet count fell under 100k and hasn’t had chemo for three weeks. The scan last week showed one new tumor in his liver, although the other two hadn’t grown (he didn’t tell me if they had shrunk guess I have to wait for the…
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God's Grace
Hi Everybody, I just wanted to pass on a great example of God's grace and support given me. Yesterday my wife and I finally compiled and executed our will, power of attorney, and health care proxy. As some of you may know I was dx with Stage IVb three months ago and continue to be amaazed at the tremendous level of support…
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Great test results!
Hello all, I got the results from my pet scan today. I am still disease free. My oncologists moved to a new office two weeks ago. The ct scanner was a brand new high tech scanner. The doctor said the machine is showing things they believe were already there, but they only had the old scans to make the comparison. We will…
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Any suggestions for painful hiccups?
Jim is having strong and painful hiccups continually today. It is the day after chemo and he is still wearing his 5fu fanny pack 24/7. Has anyone found a solution when having these continually? Thanks so much! Linda
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Update from Linda and Jim OHSU
We are very pleased with how Dr. Dolan and his staff have taken over and are co-ordinating Jim's appointments and tests. We are going back to Portland for a endoscopic ultrasound and Jim's aortic valvoplasty on the 8th of November. Jim will have completed 28 days of IMRT radiation and two sessions of chemo. We are anxious…
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Now in Hospice Care for us - they say end of journey is near
Sad to say, we haven't been on here in a while. My husband (hal) was diagnosed Nov. 30, 2009. He has fought long and hard. Chemo and radiation off and on for the past 10 months. His last two CT PET Scans revealed the chemo was no longer working and even though we gave it one more try with another type (Epirubicin and…
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Drastic changes in MIL
The last week has been a huge downward slide. We will be lucky to have her for another week. :( This just after 2 weeks of my own mothers death. MIL bday is Friday, we are going to have a bday party for her on Monday. Thanks for the support, much love, Elysia
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HACKER HACKER GO AWAY PLEASE YOU ARE HACKING OUR BOARD
Would everyone please send an email to CSN to get rid of this hacker. thanks Lori
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Hijacker Spammer of EC Board repost your recent messages
If anyone has a post they made over the last 30 days that you want on the first page so it can get more responses please go to the post and just bump it up by posting on it. I would hate to have someone come back to the board and not be able to find their thread because of that damn robot. It seems that most of the posts…
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hacker
the hacker is at work with a new name. How horrible -
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WE HAVE SOMEONE PLAYING ON OUR BOARDS
We have someone playing on our boards so our boards are all messed up clear back to 07 so alot of this stuff is obselte now. I have sent CSN an e-mail Maybe when we sign on tomorrow it will all be gone away. Lori
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Radioactive Beads to the Liver
Hi All - This is my first post - I wish I found this site a year ago when my 85 year-old Dad was first diagnosed with EC with mets to the liver. We recently found that the chemo is no longer working and the tumors in his liver have grown significantly - fortunately the cancer on his esophagus is holding steady and he can…
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Liver Biopsy - genetic testing
Hello, My father has been fighting EC (Stage IV) since December 09. He's beginning his third line of treatment -- there's a tumor in his liver that hasn't responded to any treatment. The other tumors/cancer is his arm, esophagus and liver have all disappeared. The oncologist is recommending therasphere AND is planning to…
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Update on Jim
Jim was in the hospital getting TPN and doing well. Physical therapy had him up and walking! Felt so much stronger and better being on his feet, even with a walker. Until Friday evening! About 8 pm started running high fever, 104.2. got it down, gave him Tylenol and ice packs in bad places and he did fine all night. Sat am…
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Surgery or no surgery?
My husband, Dan, was diagnosed this January with early stage squamous cell esophageal cancer, high up in his neck. After a successful chemo + radiation treatment, there seems to be no evidence of cancer. But the surgeon and gastrologist on our team are strongly recommending surgery. The scary part of this is the location…
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What does this mean?
FYI- my husband is the one who has the recurrent esophageal cancer. On my husbands last PET scan on Oct 8, 2010 it said He has a moderate sized left sided pleural effusion. He did have fluid drained from him thru a thorocoscopy on Sept 28th with his surgeon before the PET scan. The surgeon then put talc in him to stop the…
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update on Diana and I
Hi everyone. Just thought I would update all of you. We are starting grief counseling this week for the both of us, thought it would be a good idea. Things have been ok around here, we have our days of being very sad about losing Ed and my mom. It was a terrible year and although I miss both of them terribly,I am somewhat…
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Hydration via chemo port?
Since my dad is to sick to take chemo and they don't want to try a J-tube at this point I wondered about him recieving fluids through his port. What experiences have any of you had with this? He did get fluids last week at the hospital instead of his chemo because of his dehydration. He is so light headed and dizzy, throws…
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CT scan results
Hello All, This site has meant a lot to me over the last few months. I have learned so much and been so encouraged. Since I had been through ec treatment ,I wanted to be here for others facing it--to help in some small way.I know you all care so much for each other and that is why I wanted to share my report. I went to the…
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CyberKnife
Jim had his first CyberKnife radiation treatment on Monday. He basically slept through it since he was exhausted from having an assessment by the Home Health nurses, hydration at the Oncologists office, then the radiation was delayed 2 hours because of problems with the patient before him. Tuesday we went for the second…
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Anyone do post surgery chemo?
We had post surgery check up today at Mayo in Rochester. My husband at surgery had a T2 tumor removed after Cisplatin/Irinotecan/radiation therapy. One lymph node of 37 had scattered cancer cells remaining. T2N1M0. Oncologists in Omaha and Rochester both say there are no studies that show a documented benefit from post…
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Off to Major Hospital for Surgical Consultation
We have an appointment at Oregon Health and Science University Hospital in Portland, Oregon on Friday with a ec surgeon who specializes in mie. We are also seeing a physician who can do a aortic vulvoplasty which must be done before Jim can have surgery due to his aortic stenosis. Jim is still having IMRT radiation five…