Ass cancer of the head?!?

This should go in the "News of the Weird" column of the paper. The PET scan came back totally negative for everywhere in my body except the bump on my head. Therefore, the cancer must have taken up residence there. It's not impossible for a traumatic event to trigger such things, it seems. Does this mean that my colo-rectal cancer is now cranial-colo-rectal cancer? What does that say about me?

Let's not go there, then, whaddya say?

The CEA test came back. Indeed, it wasn't 50 at all this time. It was 80. It seems their machine is working just fine.

If it had to come back, this seems to be the best possible place for it to happen. It's in a place that looks like it should be easily operable (though we'll know more after talking with the neurosurgeon on Monday.) It's outside the brain, and encased in a bony knot on the back of my head. It's not big at all, maybe the size of a marble. My hair stylist didn't comment on it when she buzzed my hair the other day. Hmmm, after all this time of keeping my hair, even through the chemo, this may be when I get to shave it off after all. Maybe I'll look like Vin Diesel!

The big question is: how close to "done" am I? If this knot comes off clean, and my CEAs go back down toward zero where they belong, what is the next step? Will any little bump turn cancerous or is this a one-off event? No answers yet. There are many possible next steps, though. There is a mutation called KRAS (kay-wrass) that is resistant to the ordinary chemotherapy regimen. They are testing for that mutation now. (Since I was originally VERY responsive to the therapy, does that mean I might still have it? No idea.) If the KRAS test comes back positive, then there are other treatments available, including the one-time injection that we went to New York to investigate at the outset of my treatment last year. There is a virus that's in the final stages of testing that infects only cancer cells--it seems that I'm a good candidate for that trial, too.

What I'm looking for is to have this bump gone and then be done with the whole mess. It's been a full year now, and we're all tired of this thing. At some point, I'm going to get fed up and just move along with my life and get back to being too busy to be sick. There's a doctor who does a lot of cancer work who says there is a genuine benefit to such an attitude; that it can make the difference between someone who lives far beyond expectations and the other person who dies "on schedule" when told he has x months to live. Not me, man.

This weekend we're planning on taking that camping trip that we missed, relaxing in the warm southern humidity of late summer. We're pretty tightly focused on keeping a good attitude, supporting each other, and making further progress toward that light at the end of this long tunnel.

Cheers,

Clem