There is always hope

I am new to this web site. Thought my story could help.

We live in mid Missouri. It is a 20 mile drive to the local hospital. The locals refer to this hospital as the vet clinic.

March of 08, the day after my 65th birthday, I had my first colonoscopy. When I came to they informed me that they had removed 5 polyps and referred me to a local surgeon as I had a large tumor in my rectum. This guy wanted to put me on a bag. So I went to St. Louis and found a colon surgeon that said he could do it transanal. He did not like the colonoscopy I just had so we did another one. This doctor removed 10 more polyps.

The colon doc then removed the tumor. He then called me to inform me that the tumor he removed was cancerous. Damn that was hard news to take. Spent many hours just sitting out in the woods thinking about it. Came to the conclusion that I was just not ready to croak.

After a CT scan they told me the cancer was also in a node near where the tumor was removed. Then they tell me I need 6 weeks of radiation/chemo. There was no way that I was going to drive 200 miles a day for 6 weeks. I was referred back to the vet clinic as they could do it. After getting a power port installed they did a PET scan and it showed it was also in my liver.

The chemo doc told me I had 2 years to live. I was stage IV grade 3. I went through the 6 weeks of chemo/radiation on the pump. Near the end I developed Lumbosacral plexopathy. 1 out of 300 gets this problem. It is when the nerves get burnt from the chemo/radiation.

Next they do another PET scan and it shows that the node is now clear. Still have the liver problem. I found a liver surgeon in STL and he is younger then my sons. He is going to cut the cancer out. I wake up from this operation to be told there was too much cancer to cut out.

Bummer. He did take biopsies of the cancer and said it was the slow growing type. Different then what they took from my rectum. This is at hospital B, my colon surgeon is at hospital A.

I go home from this and end up in the emergency room at the vet clinic. My bowels were still asleep from the surgery so I end up in the vet hospital for 3 days until they wake up. We now know this was because of the nerve damage. I am now talking to Hospice.

However now they will do liver immobilization. This is where they go into your artery and into the liver. Then they fill the liver with chemo. Then they block off the arteries to where the cancer is. This kills that part of the liver. This was not that bad to deal with at first. Then everything went to hell. I end up in the vet clinic emergency room again. They don’t know what is wrong with me and send me home.

We go to STL and they put me in the hospital to find out what is wrong. Seems the liver immobilization made a good size bleed below my stomach. They fix this and do yet another colonoscopy. He says I look great inside.

They also do a CT on me and it shows NED. They send me home. Now I get sicker then I have ever been in my life. I got C-Diff while in the hospital. After 2 weeks of hell I get another type of scan and it shows NED.

Then in August I got a PET scan that shows NED. A week later my colon surgeon calls me to inform me that his tumor board got a sample of the biopsy taken from my liver at hospital B and it is a perfect match to what was removed from my rectum. The doc at hospital B said he would get back to me on this screw up. He never did. Fired him.

A week ago I got a CT that showed NED. My colon doc does not want to see me until March to do yet another in office scope job on me. He does this nasty procedure every 6 months. (Found that if I take 500mg of percocet before the exam it helps.) He told me he cannot even tell I had radiation. He also thought I would be close to death by now.

I have learned now that there is always hope. You can’t just give in to cancer. If you don’t like what a doc is telling you get another opinion. At my age quality of life is at the top of my goal list. I once read “man is what he thinks about all day long”. If you think it is going to get you, it will. You can also have fun with it. I love going to my chemo docs office once a month to get my port flushed. I just grin at him. Drives him nuts.