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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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update on Diana and I
Hi everyone, I just was reading this website as I have remained doing and just wanted to give an update. We have started with a new grief counselor that comes to our house weekly along with going back to our original therapist that we saw since the beginning of Ed's cancer. We are also joing a group grief meeting with…
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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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Shoulder Pain from Liver Mets
Hi, My father has a tumor in his liver which is causing a lot of pain in his shoulder. He's been taking Percocet, but it doesn't help much. Has anyone had this issue and if so, how did you treat the problem? Thank you!
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Blood Transfusions
This week my dad was able to get 2 units of blood. Since the chemo he has been anemic and very symptomatic. He had it all, pale skin, cold, shortness of breath,fatigue and terrible dizziness. His hemoglobin was sitting right at 8.9 or 9 even after not getting chemo for 6 weeks. It has only been a couple of days but his…
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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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My Father is Having New Scans
Tomorrow my dad has new scans to see if the new chemo he's taking is doing any good and whether or not the cancer has spread to any new areas. Please say a prayer for us. As many of of you know, testing to see what the "beast" has been up to is so very scary! For those of you that don't know the background...my dad was…
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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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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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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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My husband has passed on
I haven't written in quite awhile but I have read all your posts. For the last couple of months, my husband, Jim, fought with all his will. But this horrible disease won in the end. Jim passed away on Sept. 27. His last day was filled with family. All his brothers and sisters were able to see him and say goodbye. Our two…
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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 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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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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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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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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New question RE: HER-2 & tumor testing
I have another question regarding HER-2 and testing of the tumor. I also inquired at our post op check on Friday about testing of the tumor to see if it would help if we requested post op chemo. We were told that they didn't do that as there is no evidence of a benefit to know. We did have some staining tests, but I…
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Questions to ask for the first Oncology appt
Tomorrow is my father-in-law's first oncology appt. since being diagnosed. What questions should we be asking? Right now we are just a little too overwhelmed to be thinking clearly about what to ask. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
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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…