Schedules and dates and such

Yesterday we had a very good meeting with the oncologist. We nailed down some dates and some better projections for the future, both of which I was really glad to have. In a nutshell:

• This week's chemo treatment is the last I'll have for a while, so as to build up strength for the first surgery. I'm off the Avastin now for good. My next chemo treatment won't be until January 26th, so I can expect to feel really good through the Xmas and New Year holidays. That's nice!
• Liver resection surgery is scheduled for January 7th. Though this is no small thing, the liver is a fast-growing organ that we hope will re-grow itself to much of its function in only a several weeks. The oncologist says I will have "normal" liver function with only perhaps 15% of it, and it should re-grow to perhaps 60 or 70% of its original size, so I should be good-to-go there in the future.
• About as soon as I am strong enough to take it, we'll do the colon surgery. I don't know when that will be, maybe in March or somewhere around there.
• Beginning January 26th, I will go back on chemotherapy and start radiation treatments as well. That's to make "really really sure" that the cancer won't spread any farther from the initial site, and to ensure that the lymph nodes around there are all cleaned out and not harboring additional malignant cells.
• The chemo and radiation treatments will go on for quite a while after that. We were a little surprised to hear it will be through the month of June or so, but in the big picture that's not so long. I've been doing this for almost 3 months now, so I have come almost 1/3 of the way down the road. So far, so good.

Last week I was really busy. It was the end of my "non-chemo" week and I felt pretty good, though with more side effects than from the previous cycle. I attended the Christmas party that the Chattanooga Grotto of the NSS put on. I was president of that group for a few years, a few years ago, and am still friends with most of them. It was good to catch up with the local cavers.

Also, I got to help my friend Benjy with a filming project that he is working on. I did a little bit of rigging inside Mystery Falls Cave, right over a nearly 90m (300') pit. He is making a documentary film about the Jews who hid in Priest Cave in the Ukraine during WWII, and will use some of this footage to represent conditions there. It was a bit tiring for me, but it was great to be inside a real cave again, doing some actual rigging. Even so, I felt like a puppy who has his nose to the window but who can't come out to play as I watch the other rigger re-bolting and negotiating a dicey traverse around the pit.

Finally, on Sunday, step-son Nic wanted to check out his new rock climbing shoes at the local crag, so I said I would be his "belay slave." It turned into a big family outing as Pam came along with Nic's wife Jessica and their 4-month-old baby Adley. We hiked to Sunset Rock and rigged an easy, fun climb of about 20m (60') up the sandstone caprock. Nic nailed his climb with ease. Jessica did great as well, but elected to stop about halfway up. Mustering up all the courage I could find, I took a crack at the wall, and stumbled upward even though I was wearing gloves and hiking boots. It made the climb more challenging, but that was good for me.

All the activity left me really tired and slightly feverish at the end of each day. I am still deciding if that was just my body's healthy reaction to the exercise as it worked to purge these diseased cells or if that means that I worked too hard and I was hurting myself. I'll probably have it all mapped out by about next June or so...

In the meantime, other than turning grey at first and now mellowing to a kind of green color, I'm doing well with this round of chemo. Things even taste kind of good to me. Mostly, I am looking forward to a good "quality of life" experience over the holidays with friends and family. All y'all.

Cheers,

Clem

Silver Linings

Today's topic is "Silver Linings", the good things that have come about over the past few months. It turns out that there are more than a few of them.

Spending time at home. I live in a lovely log house, deep enough in the woods that only in the winter can I see the lights of my neighbors, and then only barely. It has been wonderful to watch the season change. I got back here just in time for the leaves to turn. Each morning, the huge picture windows in the bedroom would light up with a new brilliant color, reflected from the rising sun. Moving into the new "man-pad" has been a pleasure, too. It's still too full of junk and disorder, but every day it gets closer to being my perfect little sanctuary (or lair...)

Family time has been a pleasure, too. Usually I'm on the road, either for work or just to be rolling along, so I just "catch as catch can" any quality time with friends and family. With a new grandbaby in the house (4 months old now) there is something new to see every day. He always has a smile for me, and wants to come and be held. Pam has been glad of the studio time and the "together time" we've had, even though some of it is for the wrong reason. This has brought us closer together, which we have needed lately. My parents dropped by this past weekend, bearing gifts! How sweet of them. They brought me a huge, snuggly-warm cotton bathrobe (perfect for dashing to and from the hot tub) and hauled off some chairs and boxes of stuff we had for them. A great deal all the way around.

Working has been good, too. Not exactly the kind of high-adventure that I signed up for, but not bad all the same. I attended a 3-day professional course on Confined Space work and wrote a short presentation for the guys at Ropeworks. They enjoyed it and found it helpful, and it fulfills a requirement for annual training. Next semester I will teach a course for a good friend over at the Southern Adventist University. They have an outdoor leadership program that is really taking off, and I keep in close touch with the people there. The program director there said "Now that you are captive in town for a while, would you like to teach?" He cheers me in my travels (and generally beats them with his own) but he knows an opportunity when he sees one. It works for me.

My friends have rallied and gotten behind me in ways that I would never have dreamed before. I've always appreciated them and treasured their presence in my life, but now it is at a whole new level. If you're reading this, then you are either one of those friends or family, and your renewed closeness with me is the shiniest silver lining of all.

I'd better close this now, before I get too maudlin and start weeping or something. Cheers!

The Surgical Oncologist says...

Breaking news: they'll be breaking into my liver in January. So far, even with the new pictures, there's no reason not to do a big liver resection, and it looks like the date is January 5th or 6th. The surgeon was cautiously enthusiastic. This is a pretty big operation, and there is a significant risk associated with it, including infection, liver shutdown, and death. His plan is to peek in there with a 'scope, verify that there is no additional cancer in the area, then to make the big cut and take out 50-60% of my liver, almost the entire right lobe. There is still a possibility that he won't be able to complete the operation, but all we can tell so far indicates that we're ok.

With that, things will be pretty stable until then. I will continue my chemo treatments, but without the Avastin drug (it can cause bleeding, which I don't want after surgery.) I'll be off a week, then on a week, for the foreseeable future.

Thanks for checking in, and for appreciating the new blog format.

Good News from the Oncologist!

So I'm on treatment number 4, and the side effects are indeed getting worse each time. That's not bothering me, though, because the oncologist said today that the chemo was working very well! The scans reveal that there are no new tumors, that the existing tumors are all shrinking (not exactly "melting away", he said, but shrinking), and all my blood tests were in the green. As far as he's concerned, I will be ready for surgery either the week after December 15th or the week between X-mas and New Year's day. Everyone seems to be very leery of the surgery, but I'm inclined to think "bring it on" and let's get another step in this process checked off the list.

I'm looking forward to life after cancer.

New Blog

Ok, it's time to move up into the world of electronic software generation, and away from hand-writing each line in HTML. (Mostly 'cause I'm not very good at it.)

Pam loves this software, and has been harping on me to use it. Now that I am, let me know what you think of the change.

Tomorrow I'm headed back in to get some more of that tasty chemo-cocktail, and also to discuss last week's scans with the oncologist. We'll see what he has to say, and then we'll head over to the liver surgeon on Wednesday to get his views on the new pictures. With any luck, the news will be as good as we've all been hoping, praying, and "positively thinking" for.

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving weekend came at the end of my "no-chemo" week, so I have felt better than ever. They said that I would feel worse and worse with each week, but so far (3 treatments completed) the opposite has been true. I do feel worse each chemo week (side effects are getting more pronounced) but then I build back up in the off weeks. Strange, but true, and I am thankful for it.

Yesterday, rather than shopping and spending like the rest of the country, we worked on the project list here at home. For the first time, I rented a log splitter. It was amazing! With the help of William and Stephanie and Alex (kids and her boyfriend) we split a "wall of wood", perhaps enough to heat the house for the whole winter. It stands more than 2m tall and 10m long! We switched out the wood stoves in the living room, installing the ugly one with the powerful fan to provide better heat. It's supposed to be freezing cold this coming week, so we'll see how well it works very soon.

Maybe it sounds strange, but I have a great deal to be thankful for and appreciative of. This experience has been a lens which has helped to bring into focus the important things in life, and the important people in my life. Friends and family and even distant acquaintances have come to the fore and proven that I have much to value. They give me inspiration to make it through one more day, and keep me mindful of the future beyond this treatment regimen, back in "normal life."

Back to some real-life activities

It's been a busy week, especially for an "on" week where I have chemo. That's good, and I am very happy to be feeling well enough to be busy again. Sitting on the couch napping and watching movies was never something that I could tolerate for very long.

One of my projects has been to move into my little room. The work of a long and hard summer is coming to fruition now and I am happy to enjoy it. My beloved books are mostly on shelves now and available to me. I feel like a kid at a fairy-tale school reunion, running from old friend to old friend shaking hands and renewing acquaintances. Here's a photo of one corner of the room, showing the big picture windows and the high book shelf. The long white table is there for construction only, as are all the boxes of junk that have not yet been unpacked.

Yesterday we had an outing into town. We splurged and went to Romano's Macaroni Grill, a fancy family Italian restaurant chain. What's more, I had one small glass of red wine! Woo hoo! Probably bad for my ailing, failing liver, but what the heck, they say it is therapeutic to have a little red wine and it's been months for me. Then Pam and I went to see the new James Bond movie. He is certainly not my father's Bond any more, but I kind of like the new guy. He is full of grit and is all about the action, with less hokey humor. It's like they took all of the Austin Powers out and replaced it with Jason Bourne.

Today, and for the next two days, I'll be taking a class in Confined Space Entry and Rescue from ERS. My friend and rescue squad team-mate Shane is teaching it. He's a master of his subject so it's a great course. It feels really good to be back into something industrial, even if I'm not back on the job quite yet.

That's about it. Consider "no news is good news" again for the next few days while I am too busy with real life to keep up this blog. Thanks for listening.

Good News from the Doc

Today was "chemo day", which means we get to sit down with the oncologist (cancer specialist doctor) and talk about how things are going. All the news was really good. My blood work is all in the normal ranges, blood pressure is fantastic, weight is stable, and the side effects haven't been too bad. What's more, when he felt of my liver to see how it was doing he was visibly surprised at how it had gotten so much smaller. Woo hoo! We'll know more in a couple of weeks after the next CT scan, but the indications are that the therapies we are using are working like crazy. Thank you all for the prayers, energy, thoughts and just for checking up from time to time. It is working.

We read Lance Armstrong's books. I never thought that much about him or them, mostly because my ex wife's family is named Armstrong and they are also from Texas. It turns out that the Armstrong name is an adopted one for Lance, and he doesn't like those people, either. Anyway, his books get an enthusiastic "squeal of approval" from me. He came across as a really interesting guy who beat some very long odds indeed, and it was inspiring and motivating for me. Also, they are pretty short and easy to read, which is nice for those of us with a touch of ADD.

Working on my "man-pad"

Sorry for the delay in posting. Earlier in the week things were pretty rough around here, but now most of them are resolved and life is better.

Our close friend Doug came by and was a great help. He dropped off a prototype cold frame to help with our winter garden. It's a frame structure that keeps a plastic sheet over the veggies, keeping off the chill wind and frost and making just enough difference to extend our growing season significantly. He also helped me shuffle around the huge mountain of boxes of my junk that is now at home and not in a storage unit.

Today's plan was to install some shelf brackets and then to work on unpacking boxes. I was able to fabricate some pretty cute shelf supports out of an old, retired static rope and some climbing hardware. The shelf is now full of my favorite climbing, caving, canoeing, arctic/antarctic exploration, and mountaineering books. (It extends down the long wall of the room, and wraps halfway around the short wall, too.)

I hope to have a photo of it up in the morning.

More soon. I have an hour-by-hour rundown of a typical "day in the life" in the works, but I can't decide if it's too silly, too boring, or just too much trouble. Cheers!

A Long Week Past

Sorry for the skimpy week, there. I'm getting the hint now that if I don't keep this updated people will start calling my phone to see if I'm still alive! Rest assured, it's not that bad yet. Last week was my roughest one yet. Maybe a better way to put it is that last week was the second best week of chemo treatment so far. Anyway, it hit me pretty hard so I just laid up much of the time. We had several visitors, too, so the "up" time I had was spent on face time rather than on working in the blogosphere. (Yes, that's a real word.)

Side effects included more fatigue, a genuinely painful cold sensitivity (Monday only) and night sweats a couple of times a night. A mild fever and slight cough could have been either nothing much at all or harbingers of terrible things such as pulmonary fibrosis. (Don't click on that unless you're just into horrible images. --shudder--) Today at my lab visit I asked the nurse about it and she reassured me that I'm not there yet, this is something to treat with Robitussin and bed rest. No problem. None of these effects is worth complaining about, but all together they kept me huddled pretty close to the fire last week. Once again, if this is as bad as it gets then I'll be smiling all the time.

Saturday night Pam and I had a bit of a meltdown. This is all hard on her, harder than it is on me. She feels helpless and frustrated and angry (to name but a very few of a very long list) while I'm just tired. After a bit of "anger management therapy" involving an embarassing row in front of a friend, tossing furniture and dishes off the porch, and crashing cars, and things are a little bit better. So far the house is still standing and we're both gunshot free, so we'll take that in stride and go bravely forward, into the fog.

On the "plus" side, we are getting a ton of things done around here. When you own a house, it comes with a never-ending and always-growing list of things demanding repair, replacement, painting, caulking, and re-arranging. This week, we hope to finish moving my junk into the damn-near-finished new room, the "Man Pad." It will feel SO good to have my books, my precious books, back at hand. I feel like I've been lobotomized without all that reference material to tap into. Of course, almost all of the things on the list have been checked off by Pam, working nearly alone. I had a hope that such frantic labor would keep her occupied and keep her mind focused, but it just made her tired and sore and mean sweetly attentive. This week, my "up" week, I plan on letting her work in her art studio while I make up for lost time on the task list.

Good News

Just a quick entry, as I'm still pretty tired from the latest chemo. The word with the liver surgeon today was good--I appear to be operable. We're going to watch for the liver tumor to shrink a bit more, but the cutting will probably happen before the new year. It seems that chemotherapy hurts liver tissue, so we are walking a fine line here. We want to definitely stop the tumor from growing so it doesn't link onto something that I can't live without, but not nuke my body so bad with chemo that what's left of my liver stops working. Also, these "destructive" processes of chemo, surgery, and (later) radiation are all something that I have to recover from, and I may not be able to handle them all at the same time. We'll have to see how well I do and make the call later about how to get all these procedures done.

Off to bed again for me. (Yawn!)

Pump Off!

At last, a photo or two! It's very clear why I am not a model, but at this point I don't have a scrap of modesty left so what the heck.

This one shows my usual position around the house these days, hunkered down and trying to stay warm while working on the computer. This round the "sensitivity to cold" side effect they warned me about came on in spades. For example, just folding up my clothes at room temperature (a chilly 59 degrees F, 15 C) brought needle-like pains in the bones of my fingers. Sipping something like a glass of milk from the refrigerator made my throat feel like it was a clamp with nails, tightening shut around my windpipe. It's easy to avoid, so no real problem, but NOT something that I want to mess with. I am a little tired this evening, but that's ok. If this is as bas as these effects get, I will be thrilled to deal with them. Some day I will learn to deal with these sappy expressions in photos--please tell me I don't look like that!

Round Two

So today marks the beginning of my second round of chemotherapy. This time I get an extra booster drug called Avastin. They didn't want to use it last time because the port-a-cath they put in hadn't healed yet. Speaking of the port, I meant to get a photo of it but somehow didn't. Now it's under a bandage with the pump. I'll get a photo of the pump first, then the port when the bandage comes off on Wednesday. I'll know more on Thursday, when I am scheduled to meet with the liver surgeon to review the detailed, 3-D images we took last week. Watch for news at that time.

The doc seemed to think that my tumors were smaller this time. He used the phrase "melting away" to describe what he thought and hoped was happening to them. Me too! One tool of getting better is to visualize what I want my body's processes to do, helping them along as they do their work. The "melting" picture is one that I really enjoy using. One of his patients, in a similar situation to mine, had his tumors melt away to zero. That's my plan as well. My colon tumor seems to be smaller, in that I have an easier time going to the toilet than I used to. That's important (same as for everyone) but for me they were talking seriously of putting in an "ostomy" or a kind of tumor bypass hose. (Artificial rectum and plastic bag. Ugh.) I'll do whatever it takes, especially temporarily, but I'd much rather be able to just do the usual thing in the usual way--and that's what is happening now. The old phrase "old age is not for sissies" means a lot more to me now than it used to. I don't claim to be old, exactly, but I'm in a boat with a lot of older people and we have to deal with a lot of stuff. It takes a strange kind of courage, but I'm happy to say that I am finding it in abundance with the help of my friends and family.

My diet ranting came to a strange head today. One of the chemo patients sat in the chair next to me eating packaged snack crackers and drinking a diet soft drink. He had a white bread sandwich, a bag of 'tater chips, and--get this--he was smoking a cigarette at the entrance as we were leaving! WTF is he thinking? How can he imagine that he is helping to heal himself like that? Statistically speaking (for what statistics are worth in this situation) he looks like one of the people I'll be able to beat to the finish line. Maybe that should make me feel better, but it just makes me sad for him. You know how it is, though, that tough old bird will live to be a hundred!

So now I'm beginning a slow week of hanging around and napping. Food tastes strange again, cold is more bothersome than before, but if those are the worst side effects I see then I'll be a happy camper. My weight is constant at 198 lbs (89.8 Kg), something that I have been working hard to maintain. My goal now is to devise an exercise regimen that will allow me to work out and not get too cold doing it. Perhaps a wind trainer on my bicycle, inside...

Thank you all for reading along and following me through this. Your positive energy, thoughts, wishes, prayers, offers, emails, calls and cards all really do help. When this is over I will be eager to return the favor, so watch for me in your own time of need, if such should come.

Halloween

It's my last weekend before the next chemo treatment. This is as good as I'll feel for a while, I suppose, though I have some hope about that. I read that more than 40% of people with cancer die of malnutrition. Is that crazy or what? It makes more sense than it would seem at first when you consider that cancer makes you feel tired and not hungry, and that chemo makes you feel tired and positively nauseous. With that in mind I have been eating like a horse, packing it on for the lean times, so to speak.

They can't exactly cure cancer, though trillions of dollars have been spent in the name of the disease. Here's the big news: they can prevent it quite easily. More to the point, you and I can prevent it quite easily, by changing our diets. Many of the books I have read take it as common knowledge that cancer is a failure of the immune system, and that the immune system is failing because it can't tell good from bad any more. After a lifetime of "plastic" foods such as partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, chemical preservatives, growth hormones, antibiotics, and hourly massive insulin shocks from sugar and white bread it's no wonder. There seems to be a very clear relationship between eating that kind of junk and the "big 3" problems of our time: cancer, diabetes and obesity.

If you are not outraged, you aren't paying attention! I wasn't, right up until that doctor looked me in the eye and said "You have cancer." Suddenly, it all meant a great deal to me. On this day more than any other in the year, Americans wallow in a refined sugar river that is killing us. Our culture, which we have worked so hard to spread to all the other countries of the world, is killing them as well. Everywhere in the world that you see a child eating a fistful of processed sugar candy you see the future of these diseases.

It's breaking my heart.

What to do?

So what am I doing about it?

First off, let me say "Thanks!" to the people who actually read this thing. Your wishes and prayers and positive energy are helping. It is encouraging at a time when a little extra boost helps a lot.

So a common question is, "what are you going to do?" The answer is this: attack the problem on every front. Through dietary means, allopathically (conventional medicine), psychologically, spiritually and physically.

I've been living on fresh, organic fruits and vegetables and a little bit of organic lean meat. Pam bought a 10 hp juicer that is an engineering marvel. With it I've been eating a huge amount of fresh green veggies (kale, spinach, beet greens, wheat grass, dandilion leaves, and more), beets (#1 liver-cleansing food), apples, carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, beans, lentils, peas, and on and on and on.

The local doctors seem to be pretty good at dealing with cancer, I'm sad to say. They were quite persuasive that the conventional medicine route would be effective, at least statistically. So, I'm doing an aggressive chemotherapy treatment to kill any stray cancer cells that might be growing but too small to see, and hopefully to shrink the existing tumors, too. Following that we have surgical and radiological tools on hand to deal with the current tumors and to ensure that no more come back.

My spirits are doing really well, all things considered. Like most difficult experiences, the fear of it is worse than the thing itself. My attitude of "one day at a time", combined with "so far, so good" is working very well for the minute-by-minute part of life. The experiences of my life so far have been a good preparation for this. Mountaineering is a long and difficult task, the end of which justifies all that goes in to it. So this illness is to me; I'm tucking my head down and putting one foot in front of the other when it gets hard. That got me to the North Pole, it will get me through this, too.

Ok, are you ready for this one? Pam and Jessica read that one of the biggest problems facing chemo patients is their compromised immune systems. One of the best things that helps to boost immune systems is what babies use to stay healthy during their first year: breast milk. You'll just have to do your own Google search on "breast milk chemo immune" to see what's going around about it. Here's the thing: Jessica had a baby 3 months ago and she's producing more than the baby can handle. She was talking about donating it to a place for mothers who can't nurse. So now (today, for the first time) I am drinking mother's milk smoothies. It's a little strange to think about, but at this point I really am game for anything I can do that will increase the odds.

Quick Status Report

I'm one week into a 4-week chemotherapy program, designed to shrink the tumors. At the end of the 4th week we'll do another PET scan. That will show how effective the chemo treatment is. If the results are good, I'll continue chemotherapy for another two months or so. At that time we'll make the decision about surgery, in January or February, 2009. The most likely scenario calls for me to have surgery on the primary tumor first (colon), and then, after a bit of recovery, having the liver resection done second. Following that I can look forward to another round of chemotherapy, coupled with some radiation, to ensure that everything is really, really gone. All this is how they come up with a cure, rather than with just "backing it off" a bit to buy time. It will be hard, but we're going for the whole thing to be fixed and over with.

Meet the Surgeon

Met with a liver surgeon today. The word is that Dr. Portera is "the man" to have cutting on your liver. He's not only a surgeon but also he's familiar with oncology and the process of how they treat it. That's good for me, because it means the docs all work together and that they are familiar with what each other does.

The next step for me is yet another test. This one is a detailed CT scan, with the goal of building a 3-D model of my liver and how the tumor there is entangled with the other parts. It seems that there are two big blood vessels there, the vena cava and the portal vein. If the tumor has grown onto those, then the tumor is considered "not operable." (If they remove either of those I'll die.) My fingers are crossed, of course. That test will take place next Tuesday, so watch for an update then.

For more information on the parts of the liver, look here. On that page you can see the right and left lobes. The right side, maybe 70% by size, of my liver is almost completely taken over by the tumor. This may account for the symptom of fatigue that I've been having. The surgeon said that he'll have to remove that entire right lobe, but that since it's not doing me any good now anyway I shouldn't notice its absence. The liver is one of the most forgiving organs, in that it will grow back in a few months and I should be as good as new.

Pump Off!

The pump is off. Though that wasn't all that bad, I'm glad to be free of hoses and pumps and worrying about getting any of that stuff snagged or dropped--ouch! Now let's sit back and watch the drugs work...

Chemo time!

It's chemo time! Today I get on with the business of getting this over with. Though I wasn't thrilled with the idea of chemotherapy (who is?) it seems to offer my best hope and so I am embracing it and going forward.

The chemo process wasn't too bad. They hooked a big needle to my port-a-cath, and then started dripping drugs down the pipe. First, they dripped a couple of bags of anti-nausea medicine, good for 5 days. Then, a sack of saline solution just to top me up, and finally a couple of bags of the "helper" drugs for the actual FolFox chemo. Then, a huge syringe of the 5-FU drug, watching me for reactions all the time, and I'm good to go. (Reactions range from itchy palms to sudden death of heart failure. I'm happy to report that I didn't experience any of them.)

Surgery #1

My first surgical procedure. Though they kind of knocked me out for the endoscopy procedures, this one involved a real trip through the prep room and into my first genuine Operating Room. They installed a
port-a-cath. From what they tell me, this is a very good thing to have when you're going to have as many needles stuck in you as I am. Works for me!

The Beginning

I have to draw the line somewhere, so for now I'll start from here. After about a year of recurring, bothersome gastro-intestinal troubles I got to the point where it was time to see a doctor. We thought it was just a bug that I'd picked up in Mexico. My local doctor here thought it was H. pylori, which turned out to be true. He also suspected more, and scheduled me for an appointment with a GI specialist and his colon-scope.

Before I got in to see the GI guy, Pam went to Mexico and discussed the possibility that I still had some kind of Mexican bug with the locals. They thought my symptoms were very much suggestive of such a bug, and suggested that they would be better able to treat it there than here, and quicker, too. Since I was working in Texas at the time, it was a simple matter to change my flight to go to Los Cabos. Sure enough, a quick test at the Mexican GI doctor confirmed that I had a massive amoebic infection. As part of his "due diligence" insisted on performing a colonoscopy as well. The purging process was pretty horrible, and not even totally successful, but during the actual 'scoping I didn't feel a thing. Sadly, it confirmed a large colorectal tumor, from which he snipped a couple of pieces of tissue for testing.

He suggested that we would get a better insurance deal, and probably more options for better surgery, in the US, so we took the tissue samples to Chattanooga for a pathological anaylsis. Sure enough, it was cancer, and further tests were scheduled to see how far it had gotten.

The CT scan, PET scan, X-rays and ultrasounds all confirmed that the cancer had spread to my liver, but not visibly to any other part of my body. That was pretty good news, as the next place it likes to go is to the lungs, and then on to everywhere. Liver and rectum are bad enough, but so far the prognosis was good enough to talk about "cure" and not merely buying time.

So the summary is this: I have Stage IV malignant colon cancer that has metasticized to my liver. The placement of the colon tumor is high enough that we hope to be able to remove it and then re-connect the intestine, resuming normal bowel function. The liver tumor is huge but looks operable, though it will mean removing 70% of the liver, which should grow back and also resume its normal function.