Choosing Hope - Stage 4 - what next?

Sorry that you have to go through this and this is one of my nightmare scenarios (I'm stage 3 going through treatment now). I would get a second opinion at a top-notch cancer center like Sloan Kettering, MD Anderson, Dana Farber, etc.

Ditto to the second opinion.  Plus, if it were me, I would search out any non-chemo options to maximize her chances.  There are countless things like vitamin d (supplement and sunshine), curcumin, etc. that can help in her fight with the disease.  I am so sorry you must face this issue.

I was stage IIIB, NED for a brief nine months and then a tumour in the liver. 2.2 CM.  I had a Microwave Thermal Ablation on that tumour in April of 2014 and have been NED (no evidence of disease) ever since. 

I know that treating a tumour in the liver, all depends on its position, so get  as much information as you can as to where your wife's tumour is located, and if they can treat it by ablation (thermal or chyro), Y90, resection and I think their is a pump, is it HAI? 

I keep myself healthy, though I do not follow a strict, restrictive diet. I am a very positive person. I beleive both of these help me keep NED. 

I wish your wife the best, as she moves forward. She is blessed to have a husband, who is obviously dedicated to helping in every way, thus your reaching out here on the forum. 

Oh, and ditto to the above posts. 

Tru

I was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1997 with three lymph nodes. I also found out in 2014 my family has Lynch Syndrome.  I had 1 yr chemo and was good till Feb 2017.Then I couldn`t eat for almost a mth. Vomited everything. CAT scans and exrays showed nothing. Finally Dr did exploratory surgery to find small intestinal cancer with 1 lyph node they found. They gort everything they could see. Nothing else seemed to be there. I was told that there isn`t anything that would help me. That there are nothing because it`s very rare. They could treat it like colon cancer but prob waste of time. My chemo the first time around was a waste he said. That the Dr`s just got it all. Now I`m a nervous wreak. My colonoscophy is due the end of Sept so until then I`m on pins and needles. I have been feeling little pangs of pain on my left side of my stomach every once in a while but not constantly. I did get some severe pain one night for a few hrs and it stopped as fast as it came. Every time I feel a pain I wonder if this is it. I lived this way since 1997. Always wondering. Most of my Paternal family had colon cancer. I lost quite of few of them. I lost my daughter in 2014. Thanks for reading, no one else seem to understand.

I am in a similar situation to your wife but my mets are in a lung. I'm on chemo right now to try to shrink the mets. I have a ct scan coming up in a few weeks to see if it's working. I was on a different chemo before this and it wasn't helping at all and I even developed an additional tumour while on it. The time to get treatment is when she's feeling well, not when she feels like crap. I'm not sure what the thinking is behind that idea. We need to be strong while under treatment.

My original tumour is kept 'on file' and they did tests on it to see what chemo would work best against it and the one I'm on right now came up as the most effective so I'm feeling rather hopeful. However, my oncologist has said that I'll probably be someone who lives with their cancer and it's just kept under control, I probably will never be NED. They seem to think I have about ten to twelve years left which would be fourteen to sixteen in total if they're correct. That's not bad. 

I'd be getting a second opinion if I were you two. I had to change my onc after her lack of attention almost killed me. Long story, I won't get into it. But it's easy enough to do and you want to be confident about whatever procedure they want to go with. Cancer is not a 'let's wait and see if it resolves itself on it's own' type of issue. I'd be very concerned about that advice.

Good luck! Be a warrior for your wife! You have a tough job as a caretaker. All the best.

Jan

My wife is in this situation, stuff in the liver and lymph nodes. She's had a good quality of life and exceptional longevity.  You can click my avatar for more details.

We decided to outdo the medical standards long ago, when her situation was worse. We realized that standard medicine does not utilize the medical literature base very thoroughly.  

What did we do? More biomarkers and bloodwork - in part to avoid "sneak attacks" and partly to better fine tune off label treatments - you have more possibilities today and they all help.  We looked for non-standard treatments in therapeutic nutrition, immune enhancement, chemo and surgery - a multimodal attack.   It is possible to treat metastatic colon cancer with mild chemo - like daily oral chemo - with extras. We have to add  mild off label drugs (eg. cimetidine and celebrex) and highly potent supplements but getting first class support is difficult.  We did it with outside consults and DIY research.  There is enough discussed on forums these  days to make finding doctors and DIY parts easier.

The bad numbers often reflect doing too little too late, the way things were done 5-10 years ago, or not going beyond standard for excellence.  Waiting and essentially doing nothing as dr suggested is not the best plan for mCRC, IMHO.