Recently diagnosed

A good place to start would

A good place to start would be going to colon talk and researching rp1954 post about steps to take and blood panels you need.  SOC is not what it seems especially for Stage IV in my opinion, very minimum.

Sorry you are here but welcome my friend

You are among the best group of people brought together under terrible circumstances. My wife is stage 4. I am hoping that she gets the surgery you had. In my mind you are ahead of the game in getting that stuff out of your body. 

Pathology will identify what the tumors are which is helpful in knowing how to treat it. We went to Mass General Hospital and my wife Pam got a Gardent 360 blood test. The test identified the variants and types of mutations in the tumor cells circulating in her blood. We are treating with chemotherapy as well as integrative medicine, supplementation, and some other thing- throwing everything at it. Every cancer is different and every patient is different. Pam has neve entertained the thought that she won't get through this. Truebrit is right about that. 

These forums are a treasure trove of information that can help you avoid the unknowns of chemo and not needlessly suffer through something that someone else has and has an answer for. Chat gets going around 9:30ish EST. Stop by and you will welcomed to that family. It's a great place to chat about anything with people who understand what you are going through because they have been there or are currently there. 

Dan

stage 4 survivor

I am sorry that you are going through this.  Our story is a bit similar to yours.  I am the caregiver and my husband was diagnosed late last year with stage 4 colon cancer.  It was stage 4 because he had a tumor on his liver.  He was treated with chemotherapy first and had a good response to the chemo.  He did find it hard to go through chemotherapy but the tumor in his liver diseappeared and the one in his colon shrunk significantly.  He ended up only getting 9 out of 12 treatments and was moved to radiation with chemo pills.  He is now scheduled for surgery on Thursday to remove the tumor in the colon and they will remove as a precaution the part of the liver where the tumor used to be.  We have been told that they believe that he will be cured after his surgery and of course they will monitor him closely.

As a caregiver, I can tell you that I have noticed how much stronger he has gotten since the end of his chemotherapy.  It was difficult to go through but he has returned to his old self and getting stronger and stronger every day.

We did like you after his diagnosis and googled survival rates.  What we realized is that those are old statistics and that treatments have continued to changed over the last several years and they continue to work on finding new treatments for cancer patients. I believe that the survival rates for stage 4 is greater than what google says.

We have been advised by our medical team that my husband's prognosis is good and they are going for the cure with this surgery.  In the beginning, we cried a lot and had many sleepless nights.  But, we have both learned to live in the present and to think positively.  I truly believe that we are beating this and I have held on to the many stage 4 survivor stories that I have read.  There are stage 4 survivors out there.  As a matter of fact, I hung on to Wade Hayes' story about his fight with stage 4 colon cancer.  Google him if you want and you will see that he was diagnosed in 2011 with advanced stage 4 colon cancer and he is still doing well to this day.  Whenever my husband and I were feeling down or emotional I would google his story and remind my husband of Wade Hayes the country music singer who survived advanced stage 4 colon cancer.  

Whether any of the changes that we did in our lives helped or not, I will share that we have my husband on a mediterrean diet and we've tried to change any cleaning products to natural only products.  We will never know if this helped or not but what it gave us was something in our control to focus on.

I wish you the best with your treatments!  You are not alone!  Cancer patients and their caregivers are very compassionate towards others fighting this fight.  I truly believe that it can be fought.  

Bernice

 

 

When I was first diagnosed

When I was first diagnosed stage 3, I asked my oncologist what he survival rate was and he said not to think about that (not easy). and then after telling me about the chemo, I said well what is it you are working for? He immediately said, cure!

That was 2016. In 2018, I was diagnosed stage 4 because the cancer had come back to my left lung. My oncologist wanted to schedule a biopsy but I balked. I went to a thoracic surgeon and he confirmed that it was most likely a recurrence of the cancer but suggested a biopsy. I said well what about just cutting that sucker out and then do a biopsy. He said he liked that aggressive approach and he would ensure getting large margins as if it was small cell lung cancer rather than colorectal. I was ok with that.

No radiation, 6 months of chemo and I've been NED ever since.

So my advice is this... you will no doubt crunch the numbers on survival and come up with different projections but I say get yourself a team that is aggressive and is working for a cure, not survival rate.

good luck

k