Intrahepatic Bile duct cancer

NOLA Fan

Two weeks ago my wife was diagnosted with intrahepatic bile duct cancer. She has a 7cm tumor on the left lobe of the liver with many other small rumors on the right side.  It has also affected five lymp nodes in the abdomin   surgery is not an option. They have scheduled a TACE procedure.  Does anyone have any experience with this cancer and/or the TACE procedure? 

northa914

Four TACE Procedures

Though I've since been diagnosed with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, my inital diagnosis was for Cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer) stage IV.  Over the course of two years I have had four TACEs performed.  In spite of the fact that the wrong type of cancer was being treated, my specialist explained later (when it was discovered that we had been chasing the wrong cancer for 2.5 years) that he would have done the same procedure using the same type of chemo drugs for either cancer.  The procedures were outpatient, lasting about 2 - 3 hours for the procedure and about 1 - 2 hours for recovery.  My worst complaint was the post-operativr pain, which set in about four hours later and lasted for about two days before subsiding.  For me, dilaudid did the trick, and I only had to take the one type of pain med for two days.  The TACE procedures were the only successful treatment for me, which makes sense since for 2.5 years we were chasing bile duct cancer whose treatments are ineffetive for pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. Your oncoloist(s) may want to place you on various chemo regimes (mine were Gemzar/Cisplatin, Gemzar alons, Gemzar/Xeloda, Genzar/Cisplatin again, and FOLFIRINOX  The is a woman from Oregon, Laura York, that goes by the name The Cancer Assasin.  She has a blog, and can be accessed via Facebook.  She has been fighting bile duct cancer for about four years now, and may give you ideas and inspiration.  

 

I hope this helps.  Please PM me if you have any qother questions or need support!