stage 4 question

though I only had one liver met, so not quite in the same state as you are. 

You will find others here who are NED with multiply mets. 

In fact, if you go to this link  http://csn.cancer.org/node/290094  and read, you will find some who don't post here often. Especially read the post by plucky (page 2) who has had multiple mets to liver and lungs, and is currently 3 years NED. 

Keep the faith. You are doing well. 

Sue - Trubrit

I'm currently NED from stage iv with mets to liver.  Just chemo, no surgery as my liver was 90% tumors.

Trubrit said:

I am NED at the moment...

though I only had one liver met, so not quite in the same state as you are. 

You will find others here who are NED with multiply mets. 

In fact, if you go to this link  http://csn.cancer.org/node/290094  and read, you will find some who don't post here often. Especially read the post by plucky (page 2) who has had multiple mets to liver and lungs, and is currently 3 years NED. 

Keep the faith. You are doing well. 

Sue - Trubrit

I thought NED is no evidence of disease. How can someone be NED but still have mets to liver and lungs? 

Trubrit said:

Sorry!

I did not word my post very well at all. 

I should have said that their are many here who have had (past tense) many mets, and are at the moment NED. 

I will try to be more careful with my wording in future. 

Sue - Trubrit

I thought there was something I just wasn't getting. Thanks for clearing that up. I hope you're doing well.

Lin

Stage 4 at dx and that was 8 years ago. I am NED for 3 years now but you never know.  

All my best

CHip

I am currently NED from both Tedticular and Colon cancer. After seven surgeries and 29 chemo treatments., 22 radiation treatments.  All this over 2 years and 10 months. I have had two colon resectiond, one lung resection, three liver resections, and one orchiectomy (testical removed for testicular cancer). I celebrated my 51 birthday in January and I'm looking forward to two daughters weddings over the next year. 

Wishing and praying for the best, for all of us!

Phil

Stage IV and NED for 3 years this coming Sunday!  And I am not on any medication.  All I do is my follow up CT, Lab work, and Oncology visits at 6 month intervals now!

SilentRenegade said:

This thread is sooo wonderful

This thread is sooo wonderful to read. 

My dad has Stage IV with mets to the lungs and liver. He had two large tumors (one in colon one in rectum) that disappeared with just chemo and radiation. The liver mets disappeared after his first round of chemo - they are still working on the lungs and a spot reappeared in the liver, but he is consistently gaining weight on chemo (After being down to 130lbs at 6ft - he's back up to 150 and plans on being 160 before his next appointment... his heaviest in his life was 175) and has a lot of energy - a huge improvement from last summer and the summer before.

There seriously is hope - you really have to believe in yourself, honestly... I swear half of my dad's success has been the attitude that he's not going to die from cancer. 

Has a lot to do with improvement (IMHO). My brother is still going strong and insists cancer is not going to kick his butt. I believe him! He is stage 4 with several mets to the lung and 1 to the liver. His heart weakened (could be due to chemo for NHL he had in 2000), so his chemo dose was lowered. He has been fighting this since 2011.

As you will see, there are many on here who have been around for a long time who are stage 4, but sometimes we do lose some of our members. I like to look at the glass as half full, so I like to hear all the stories of people who are living with stage 4 cancer for years or have become NED! I think many who have become NED had some sort of surgery.

Lin

BillO60 said:

Great Positvie Thread - Needed that kind of boost today

I haven't been on here for awhile. Was diagnosed with CRC in March after an endoscopy/colonoscopy showed a 10 cm circumferential mass about 5 cm in from the anal verge. 

Biopsy came back as adenocarcinoma.  A CT scan, an MRI, and then a PET scan showed some sub-centimeter "cysts" in the liver but both the surgeon and oncologist used the word inconclusive and planned to do a biopsy if possible during surgery. I went through 28 days of radiation for the CRC tumor and 42 days of twice a day oral doses of Capcetibine.

Aside from making many, many trips to the bathroom during and after the treatment I tolerated it reasonably well. Lots of fatigue which I attribute to getting 1 or 2 hours of sleep in a row each night because of the 8+ urgent trips to the bathroom that kept waking me up. Even taking max doses of Lomotil and Immodium around the clock did nothing to slow it down. It's been about 10 weeks and things are much improved compared to when I was in treatment although I'm still fatigued and have to be close to a bathroom during the day.

Although the rad/chemo was meant to reduce the tumor size I'm not convinced that it had any affect. I've been scheduled for surgery mid-August and was introduced to a 2nd surgeon who ordered a follow-up MRI scan of the pelivis and one of the liver. I had not seen the original test results regarding the liver and might have been defining the word "inconclusive" too optimistically. This last MRI was no different from the first on either the CRC or the liver.

I got a copy of the results that showed a 1 CM lesion in segment 7 and several smaller lesions in both Segments 5 and 7 which "possibly represent small metastases". So, although mentally geared up to deal with the surgery and chemo for the CRC I hadn't been mentally prepared to deal with the strong likelyhood of a Stage IV diagnosis. 

It's taken me a few days of researching and getting my head wrapped around this and after reading so much doom and gloom on the web it's good to find more optimistic and postive results in here.

Thank you all for your postive stories. It helps keep us newbies going.

Bill

So good to see you back, and get an update. 

I do hope that all goes well when you have your surgery. Keep us informed on how its going. 

I also had an inconclusive spot on my liver, when I started this journey. It did turn out to be a tumour, which I had ablated 13 months ago. I have been doing well, ever since. CT Scan and blood work coming up on Monday, but I don't anticipate anything bad. 

There are some great success stories on here. Pop back often, especially when you're feeling overwhelmed. 

Sue - Trubrit