CT Scan Results and More

Today we met with the Oncologist to get Steve’s CT Scan results and his latest CEA number.  The appointment wasn’t what we hoped for last week going into the CT Scan.  Steve and I both had different ideas of what to expect and neither of those expectations happened.

First of all I’m very happy to tell you that his CEA number is 21.  Last time it was 64 so this was a nice drop and we were very happy to see it so low. That was good.

Next is the size of the tumors.  They’ve decreased significantly in both his lungs and liver.  Which is great news!  But, Honestly this is where I was surprised as I assumed that one of his organs would be clean of tumors because the CEA number has gone down so low.  But that wasn’t the case so I was a little disappointed.  But that may never happen in Steve’s case.  That being said,  I’m very happy that this dreaded cancer that I HATE so much (Hate is a strong word but I’m using it here!) is being defeated by the Chemo (which I’m also not very crazy about as for what it does to my husband).

It’s working right now.  That’s the plan.

But the not so great part is what is making all of the above hard to be happy about.  The CT Scan (which shows so much!) also showed some inflammation of his colon and a small perforation in the colon.  There is no leakage as of right now and we don’t know if there ever will be.  The oncologist is going to consult with Steve’s surgeon and see what he thinks about it.

He didn’t give us any idea of what to expect.  Which is okay because it’s not his area of expertise and while we are okay with that, we are disappointed we don’t know if this is something we need to worry about.

Will Steve have to have a portion of his colon removed?  Will it be able to stay that way for a while?  Is this something that they expect to see and they won’t be worried about it?

Those are all the questions we are thinking about right now but have to wait to hear from the Surgeon.  I’m hoping to get a call within the next couple of days.

But here is the thing that makes us worry about this.  If Steve has to have a portion of his colon removed (he says they would remove and not repair), then that means chemo will have to stop through his recovery.  We don’t want to stop chemo yet as the tumors are still there and that only gives them a chance to grow back.   That time period could be anywhere from 4 weeks to 6 months.  That may not be the best option for him just yet.  There is a reason we went right to chemo as quickly as we did and I don’t want to find out yet, what would happen if we have to stop.

We don’t want Steve to be average.  We want him to beat the odds.

For now, we just have to wait to see what the surgeon says and as soon as we know, we’ll let you all know.  But we are praying for no surgery.

The other thing we discussed with the oncologist was the mouth sores Steve has.  He’s lost way too much weight because he can’t eat anything other than Ice Cream, Yogurt and pudding right now.  The doctor is very concerned about his weight loss and wants it to stop.  So he suggested we push the next chemo treatment (tomorrow’s) off a week to give his mouth time to heal and to get some food into him.  Steve said NO.  I tried to convince him to do it now but he doesn’t want to, just in case we find out next week he needs surgery.

So we made a deal with the doctor.  If the sores come back next week even with the reduction in one of the chemo meds, he will then skip the next chemo treatment to give his mouth some time to recover and for him to eat.

So that’s the news for now.  Hoping to have better news on the next update.