CT done today

LisaPizza said:

How great that things got

How great that things got moved up! I hear you on the colonoscopy, I just had one on Thursday, and the prep is so foul. 

 

Just FYI, if that paper called the chemo "TC", I'm pretty sure that means taxol and carboplatin.

Why didn't I think of that?  I was hoping for some other chemo that would do wonders for me.  Thanks for telling me.  Sorry to be replying so late.

pinky104 said:

NoTimeForCancer

Your comment is really coincidental (and nice) .  My husband and I were in a bar once where a guy told us that he was looking for a farm woman.  He said he wanted one for a wife because they do everything.  As a kid, I grew up on a farm and had lots of chores.  My husband still comments occasionally about how tough I am, keeping up with him on chores around here.  Up until last year, we still shoveled the roof together in the winter.  I went out there at 1 a.m. once when the roof was leaking onto my husband's computer desk.  He was very sick and couldn't do it.  I shoveled the almost two feet of snow next to the house by the light of the pole lamp at the end of the sidewalk, hoping not to fall off.  We've decided that now, at 70 and 74, it's time to hire someone to do it.  The last  big snowstorm cost us $400. 

I had my colonoscopy today.  The doctor found two ulcerations in the transverse colon.  He said they definitely weren't polyps, and he didn't know what they were. He'd never seen anything like them.  He's sending specimens out for a biopsy.  The pictures he showed me make them look like big canker sores with white in the center.  His comment on the report was that he's "concerned they represent metastatic lesions in a patient with known advanced stage endometrial cancer." I won't get the results for at least a week, maybe two, the nurse said.  I hope they get them done a.s.a,p. after the rush my oncologist put on getting me scheduled for this procedure.

The ulcerations are right around the corner from where my intestines were put back together during my last cancer surgery. My cancer was wrapped around the ascending colon back then.  

Sounds like my odds are pretty good for ending up with another awful cancer surgery!  Time will tell.... 

LisaPizza said:

I wonder the ulcers could be

I wonder the ulcers could be caused by your prior surgery?

Although they haven't sent it to me yet, and it isn't on my patient portal, I electronically requested my colonoscopy record and the timestamp showed it was reported out the day after the colonoscopy. I don't know if you can request records electronically or pick up a copy so you don't have to wait. 

My GI doctor gave me the report immediately when I was still in bed there.  It came complete with pictures. I'll write more below from what happened today at my appointments.

I saw the female PA at my oncologist's office today.  I love her bedside manner.  She hadn't gotten my colonoscopy report yet, so I showed her mine.  She looked at it and said she didn't know what the ulcerations were.  My husband asked if I could have ulcerative colitis.  She said that ulcerative colitis doesn't look anything like this, so she didn't think so.  She showed me the slices of the PET scan, going from the head down through the body. She said the good thing was that there was no cancer anywhere else in the body except for in that general area.  The mass takes up about all the empty space on the right side of my abdomen.  There's a little knob at the top of the mass that extends over toward the middle of the abdomen, and she's not sure if this could be cancer or not.  It's where the colonoscopy report shows the ulcerations.  

I showed her the case studies on Malignant Psoas Syndrome that I found on the Internet recently.  It was done on 3 gynecological cancer cases in Japan in 2018.  She thought I certainly had some of the aspects of that.  When I later saw the radiation oncologist, he said I absolutely have that.  I discussed the results with the PA, mentioning that two of the subjects died in 7 or 8 months, and one lived.  The one who had serous carcinoma had been one of the deaths, but that woman had refused chemo.  The one who lived had been the one who had taken TC chemo and Avastin.  I asked her if TC was Taxol and Carboplatin, but she thought not.  She said it was most likely Taxotere Cytoxin.  I know I don't want that because of the permanent hair loss it can cause.

I showed her the article on Herceptin, but she researched my HER 2 status, looking at my Foundation One report, and said it wouldn't work on me. She said the biopsy report on the intestinal ulcerations is sent out somewhere else besides my hospital, so she can't pull strings so easily to get the report finished faster. She wants me to come back in two weeks after my biopsy report is (hopefully) there, then either do chemo with Cisplatin, Gemzar, and Avastin if I have cancer in the colon, followed by radiation, or radiation first if I don't.  She didn't think I should have surgery on the intestine with having the ulcerations in multiple spots if they are malignant.  I pointed out that there were only two spots, but that didn't seem to make a difference.  She then sent me to see the radiation oncologist, saying that my two week appointment is tentative and that the radiation oncologist might have another take on my treatment, which he did. He hadn't seen either my PET scan report from two days ago or my colonoscopy report from yesterday. He also said he didn't know what the ulcerations in the transverse colon were.  He raised the possibility that they could be another cancer, like colon cancer.  He asked me how long I'd had my symptoms.  I explained what I'd been through with my orthopedist, who'd said I had greater trochanteric bursitis.  He flat out said that was ****.  Then I told him how my leg is very numb, and my neurologist had said I had meralgia paresthetica from either wearing my pants too tight or from fat pressing on the nerve going over my pelvis when I saw him this fall.  My husband then said he thought that was double ****, and the radiation oncologist said it was triple ****, or maybe even quadruple ****.  That about sums up how I'd felt all along.  He thought all my symptoms were being caused by the cancer.  He said I'd suffered long enough with this.  He also thought that the colon isn't resectable.  He's having me come in tomorrow to start radiation planning.  He's going to be discussing his plans with my oncologist's PA, the oncologist himself, and probably also my GYN/onc.  He wants to start radiation as early as this coming Monday.  He discussed two options, depending upon what the others say.  He'd like to do 10 treatments with high dose radiation, then have me go for chemo.  However, he might have me do low dose radiation for much longer and have me do chemo.  The two might overlap some of the time.  He said the side effects are mainly diarrhea, nausea, an increased risk of adhesions, and fatigue.  There's also a small chance of a bowel obstruction.  I know one of my sister's friends recently had two of those with her radiation.  I discussed radiation cystitis with him because I get recurrent UTI's. He thinks he can aim the beam so it doesn't hit my bladder.  I also think he's going to avoid radiating the intestine where the ulcerations are, having that treated by chemo instead, if it is, in fact, cancerous there. I'm glad this guy is getting the ball rolling because I've wondered how much longer I'm going to live with this.  He said the earlier we get things going, the better the chance that the nerves will come back.  Personally, I have my doubts that they'll ever recover.  I've had this way too long, since before my last recurrence.  When I didn't improve after surgery, I thought my nerves had probably been cut in surgery.  I should have realized that since my CA-125 never went down as low as it had in 2010, that meant that the cancer was still lurking in there.  The figure in 2017 after my recurrence surgery and up to this year was double what it had been after surgery in 2010.

I hope everyone gets together and agrees on radiation first, then chemo.  I will be very upset if I have to go through another surgery.  Thankfully, it seems like the odds are good for skipping that, after talking to these two.  I already have chemo induced anemia, so I'm sure that will only get worse with more chemo, but I still think I'd rather have chemo than surgery.  I hope I don't have a lot of radiation complications like many of you have had.  Wish me luck!