Steve’s Cancer Updates

Steve had the port placed today.  It went well with no problems.  He’s sore and groggy and is actually taking the pain meds. Step 1 – DONE.

So for those of you that know Steve well, you know that he isn’t big on fruits and veggies.  He’s a meat and potatoes kind of guy (which also means low fiber – not good for the colon I’ve learned). However, when he first found out about the cancer, he vowed to do whatever he can to get his body healthy again and that included eating fruits and veggies if needed. While visiting with the Oncologist last week, he went over side effects of the chemo and asked us if we had any questions.  Steve asked him if he should avoid any foods or eat certain foods to help repair the damage that the chemo will be doing to his body. I swear Steve had…

We met with the surgeon on June 20 2014 that was going to put in the Port-A-Cath on the following Monday.  He explained to us that it will sit in the front of his shoulder, just under the skin.  It can stay there for as long as we need it and then removed when we are done.  He will receive his chemo through the port and have all his blood work drawn from it.  This way they don’t have to poke him each time.  Of course there are things that can complicate this but those things are rare and probably won’t happen.  We are pretty confident that getting the Port is the best way to do it. The surgery was outpatient and pretty simple and…

On June 18th, we saw the Oncologist and he told us the bone scan was clean and there is no cancer in his bones.  First good news we had received!  I thought for sure it would be so I was pretty happy to hear that. The plan was to start chemo on Wednesday, June 25, 2014 and the doctor planned for the first scans to be done probably in September to see it’s working.   They will be doing blood work weekly or biweekly to make sure the chemo isn’t affecting his white/red blood cells and platelets.  If it does, the doctor will readjust. Really hoping we can put this in remission for a long time.  Only time will tell.

On June 17, 2014  Steve had his first Colonoscopy.   Thankfully the prep for it wasn’t too bad on him.  The doctor wasn’t expecting to find the tumor because he looked at all the scans beforehand and even he saw nothing in the colon.  So he was pretty curious as to what he’d see.  And so were we.  I was actually wondering if there might not even be a tumor and this would be a rare type of colon cancer.   My husband would be the one to not have something easily found.   Because he likes to be ‘different’. Well, that wasn’t the case.  The doctor did find the tumor and it’s big.  The mass is in the sigmoid colon.  He said it’s pretty much the entire…