New guy here!
Comments
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WELCOME!! Tell me more!!
Welcome, ECfighter!
What Stage were you diagnosed at before the 28 radiations and 6 chemo's?
What facility and what state? What flavors of chemo did you get to enjoy?
The Army Of Tom, I LOVE it!
We are a close family of friends helping friends here, and we WELCOME you to our group!! Especially with your kind of success and what an incredibly positive outlook you have shared with us!! A WELCOME change from the usual new post where things are either all unknown or gloomy!
I am glad to 'meet' you and look forward to getting a chance to know you.
I sure hope that you will post more information and keep sharing these positive posting with us all.
We have had some great successes of late, but also many sad and bad (and all too common with EC beast) recurrences and bad outcomes after brave and courageous fights with chemo, radiation or both. Some have gone in for surgery as you will soon, and have found things inside to be worse than thought. Those are the most heartbreaking cases.
I am 43, stage IV and terminal. Palliative was my only option. I have chosen to continue to live. I, like you, love Hagen-Daz like nobody's business, especially Run Raisin and Strawberry Cheesecake. They are ALL incredible. I, too was told I had six months to live. By a GI doc and two oncologists. We ALL sadly know that routine ALL too well here.
I can certainly relate to so many POSITIVES since my diagnosis on June 17th 2011. One of those, the biggest, was finding this group, this family, so different, so unlike ANY other message boards or groups out there o the Internet. I LOVE y life, every MINUTE of it, like you. I will not have this beast bring me down or beat me the way it had planned to, palliative or curable or whatever it wants to try.
My name is Eric and I personally thank you for the positive post and the introduction.
I look forward to your next post. Also can't wait to hear how your re-staging goes and what the prognosis is for your future and surgery. Do you know which of the three surgeries you will be having yet as William asked? MIE? THE? IL? Or some new initials??
Again welcome. Wishing you continued success and ALL the best in your fight, and it sounds like you are over half way there already, with your attitude!
-Eric0 -
stuffchemosmoker said:WELCOME!! Tell me more!!
Welcome, ECfighter!
What Stage were you diagnosed at before the 28 radiations and 6 chemo's?
What facility and what state? What flavors of chemo did you get to enjoy?
The Army Of Tom, I LOVE it!
We are a close family of friends helping friends here, and we WELCOME you to our group!! Especially with your kind of success and what an incredibly positive outlook you have shared with us!! A WELCOME change from the usual new post where things are either all unknown or gloomy!
I am glad to 'meet' you and look forward to getting a chance to know you.
I sure hope that you will post more information and keep sharing these positive posting with us all.
We have had some great successes of late, but also many sad and bad (and all too common with EC beast) recurrences and bad outcomes after brave and courageous fights with chemo, radiation or both. Some have gone in for surgery as you will soon, and have found things inside to be worse than thought. Those are the most heartbreaking cases.
I am 43, stage IV and terminal. Palliative was my only option. I have chosen to continue to live. I, like you, love Hagen-Daz like nobody's business, especially Run Raisin and Strawberry Cheesecake. They are ALL incredible. I, too was told I had six months to live. By a GI doc and two oncologists. We ALL sadly know that routine ALL too well here.
I can certainly relate to so many POSITIVES since my diagnosis on June 17th 2011. One of those, the biggest, was finding this group, this family, so different, so unlike ANY other message boards or groups out there o the Internet. I LOVE y life, every MINUTE of it, like you. I will not have this beast bring me down or beat me the way it had planned to, palliative or curable or whatever it wants to try.
My name is Eric and I personally thank you for the positive post and the introduction.
I look forward to your next post. Also can't wait to hear how your re-staging goes and what the prognosis is for your future and surgery. Do you know which of the three surgeries you will be having yet as William asked? MIE? THE? IL? Or some new initials??
Again welcome. Wishing you continued success and ALL the best in your fight, and it sounds like you are over half way there already, with your attitude!
-Eric
Thanks guys for the welcome! The reason I did not go into all the particulars of my treatment/condition is I assumed all that technical stuff is the same stuff That everyone has already heard. I do keep a daily journal on caringbridge and write an entry everyday there. My wife and I are about to head out of town tonight to watch our daughter conduct her women's choir at a nearby University so I will
Write more later. In a nutshell I am stage 3, tumor was huge, over 75% of my esophagus and is in a few lymph nodes. It has busted through the esophagus. The radiation and Chemo was to shrink the sucker so they can get it out. We looked at all options including MD Anderson in Houston but felt very good about staying here in MS. Our primary surgeon and all his support Doctors/team have been awesome. MS Baptist and our lead surgeon is Dr Phillip Ley. Even MD Anderson said he is the best and we were very fortunate. All is good and the only downside is me being on medical leave and not being with my college marching band after 30
Years at the same job. But, I had 10 months if paid sick leave built up so I guess good thing on that! my diagnosis was August 18, not Aug 1....that was a typo. The first doctor assumed I had Csncer in my liver and bones and lungs. Ha was wrong. But he got us in with Dr Ley, so I do not hold ill
Will at all.0 -
No following THAT logic!!ECfighter said:stuff
Thanks guys for the welcome! The reason I did not go into all the particulars of my treatment/condition is I assumed all that technical stuff is the same stuff That everyone has already heard. I do keep a daily journal on caringbridge and write an entry everyday there. My wife and I are about to head out of town tonight to watch our daughter conduct her women's choir at a nearby University so I will
Write more later. In a nutshell I am stage 3, tumor was huge, over 75% of my esophagus and is in a few lymph nodes. It has busted through the esophagus. The radiation and Chemo was to shrink the sucker so they can get it out. We looked at all options including MD Anderson in Houston but felt very good about staying here in MS. Our primary surgeon and all his support Doctors/team have been awesome. MS Baptist and our lead surgeon is Dr Phillip Ley. Even MD Anderson said he is the best and we were very fortunate. All is good and the only downside is me being on medical leave and not being with my college marching band after 30
Years at the same job. But, I had 10 months if paid sick leave built up so I guess good thing on that! my diagnosis was August 18, not Aug 1....that was a typo. The first doctor assumed I had Csncer in my liver and bones and lungs. Ha was wrong. But he got us in with Dr Ley, so I do not hold ill
Will at all.
ECfighter,
First thing I have to share is this; I am NOT a doctor, but if your tumor is taking up 75% of your esophagus, and has broken through all five layers of the esophagus, inner AND outer wall, mainly inner wall, and you can STILL eat and swallow, it would be my sincere opinion that you seem more like a STAGE IV, not Stage III. That's how my oncologist explained PART of my staging to me, as mine is the same way...grown through the inner and outer wall and into outer vessels and surrounding aorta and nerves and such, right over my liver, but mine is not taking up 30% of my esophagus, and I am an EASY stage IV with the fact it has penetrated so thoroughly, I have a similar tumor through the inner and outer walls of my stomach, and also of course the spread to other areas not local and such. 75% is HUGE.
Mind you the SIZE of a tumor has little to do with its spread or "resectability" and all, but if it is SO large and has grown and is in surrounding nodes, I would sure want some more opinions from some more doctors before anyone goes cutting on me! I think a second and third opinion before an esophagetomy should be required by law, as well as a refresher in the benefits and differences between MIE's THE's and IL's. That's just me. They ALSO need to be a little more honest with everyone about the REALISTIC chances of recurrence and the importance of clean-up post-op chemo. I think that should be required as well, or you are asking for a sad day at some point in the future, from what I have seen. Am I on my soap box again? Me with my NO CHEMO and NO surgery big head?? Sorry. I digress...
Glad you feel you have a good doc, but again, my experience with MD Anderson after living in Houston for 6 years was if there is a good doctor that they will stand behind, he will be working AT MD Anderson, for them. That threw me as well.
I look forward to speaking to you more here. Gotta run right now but I will look for your follow-up and post more to you here tonight as well.
God Bless,
Eric0 -
Thread questionchemosmoker said:No following THAT logic!!
ECfighter,
First thing I have to share is this; I am NOT a doctor, but if your tumor is taking up 75% of your esophagus, and has broken through all five layers of the esophagus, inner AND outer wall, mainly inner wall, and you can STILL eat and swallow, it would be my sincere opinion that you seem more like a STAGE IV, not Stage III. That's how my oncologist explained PART of my staging to me, as mine is the same way...grown through the inner and outer wall and into outer vessels and surrounding aorta and nerves and such, right over my liver, but mine is not taking up 30% of my esophagus, and I am an EASY stage IV with the fact it has penetrated so thoroughly, I have a similar tumor through the inner and outer walls of my stomach, and also of course the spread to other areas not local and such. 75% is HUGE.
Mind you the SIZE of a tumor has little to do with its spread or "resectability" and all, but if it is SO large and has grown and is in surrounding nodes, I would sure want some more opinions from some more doctors before anyone goes cutting on me! I think a second and third opinion before an esophagetomy should be required by law, as well as a refresher in the benefits and differences between MIE's THE's and IL's. That's just me. They ALSO need to be a little more honest with everyone about the REALISTIC chances of recurrence and the importance of clean-up post-op chemo. I think that should be required as well, or you are asking for a sad day at some point in the future, from what I have seen. Am I on my soap box again? Me with my NO CHEMO and NO surgery big head?? Sorry. I digress...
Glad you feel you have a good doc, but again, my experience with MD Anderson after living in Houston for 6 years was if there is a good doctor that they will stand behind, he will be working AT MD Anderson, for them. That threw me as well.
I look forward to speaking to you more here. Gotta run right now but I will look for your follow-up and post more to you here tonight as well.
God Bless,
Eric
Question on posts. how do I keep this thread going with out starting another thread? My first reply started me at the top of the list on the main page again0 -
Posts and new threads...ECfighter said:Thread question
Question on posts. how do I keep this thread going with out starting another thread? My first reply started me at the top of the list on the main page again
Each time you or I (or anyone else) replies to this thread, it will be moved back to the top of the "list" of EC threads, however that is not starting a NEW thread, as you see here with my reply and your question, it simply continues to ad it on to the bottom of the existing and ongoing thread. Make sense??
If you WANT to start a new thread, there is a link on the main EC page that says "Start New Discussion" but I don't think that's what you meant.
If you click reply in a thread to the very first post in that thread, your response will fall to the bottom of the list as the "last" response. However, if you click "reply" to a response in the middle of the thread, your reply will fall directly UNDER THAT persons post.
You can't go wrong, we all look and read all the replies usually, and you will notice when you re-visit a thread, any new replies will have the word "new" under the SUBJECT line.
I hope this helps.
Eric0 -
I agree with Eric
You should be very careful with the staging. It's heartbreaking to see the people on this board who have gone through the trauma of surgery only to have a recurrence, when the proper stage should probably have been stage iv to begin with. But I don't mean to rain on your parade. I love the positive enthusiam you bring with you.
My main point is, I've gone through "definitive" chemoradiation for stage IV. It was tough and I don't think I could do it again, but I know I would not have wanted to go through all that AND deal with surgery. My chemoradiation eliminated the tumor entirely along with all the ajacent nodes, everything surgery would have done for me, given my stage IV diagosis. I've also gone through the heartache of recurrence and I know I was stronger, physically and medically, and probably mentally, to deal with that without having gone through the surgery.
If you are a true stage III, then by all means, do what it takes to get rid of the beast. But be sure.
We will be cheering for you, and please keep us advised.
Oh, and please fill in your treatment details in your profile on in a post. There is no standard treatment for EC, so it's interesting to see all the different configurations doctors come up with.
Best to you
Lu0
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