Newest Scans and CEA Update

Steve finished his 7th round of Chemo last Friday and it went well.  He started eating more as his mouth sores healed and had a generally good weekend. I just heard from the doctor and he said the surgeon doesn’t think that there is any need to worry about what they saw in the CT scan and they are leaving his colon as it is.  They will just keep an eye on how he’s feeling and if he starts to have any problems. We are relieved because surgery means no chemo and we are not ready to stop because the tumors are still there. This past round of chemo the doctor reduced one of the meds to hopefully stop the mouth sores from coming back….

Steve had his 8th round of chemo this week and he’s pretty happy it’s over because he has a break and won’t be back to the infusion center for 4 weeks. Why the break?  He needed it for so many reasons and without it, going forward would have been way too hard. First of all, his CEA number is down to 11.  So that’s GREAT!  So if he’s going to take a break, now is a good time to do it since the number is still going down and the chemo is still working. But the real reason for the break is because he needs it physically and mentally.  Even with the reduction in the 5-FU, he’s still getting the mouth sores, but not as…

It’s a little over a month later and the girls and I have began moving forward with our life without Steve.  I won’t lie, it’s awful.  Some days are okay, but lately most are not.  I’m really struggling with this.  I thought I would be okay.  I thought I was prepared for this.  I thought I grieved the last 2+ years, and I thought that was hard.  This is worse.  I was no where near ready for losing him.  I was no where near ready for the pain of missing someone that has been in my life, every day for 18 years.  Especially losing them when you have no choice. I also thought we had more time.  I thought we had one more Thanksgiving… one…

On Tuesday, June 10, 2014, we saw the oncologist from the hospital to get the final results from the biopsy.  We knew Steve had cancer but we didn’t know what kind so we weren’t sure what we were dealing with, yet. That was when we found out it was Colon Cancer.  And since it’s spread to 2 other organs (liver and lung), it’s Stage 4.  Colon cancer is not curable once it’s spread to other organs.  Therefore, Steve will never be cancer free.  🙁 The doctor said there really is no reason to operate since there was no large obstruction in the colon (since they didn’t see anything on the CT Scan) nor is there a lot of bleeding (since Steve has never noticed any)…

Our amazing community is hosting an evening of Yoga in honor of Steve this week.  I can’t even express in words what this means to our family.  Every week our friends amaze us with their love, support and generosity.   Calling ourselves Lucky doesn’t even describe what we feel.  LOVED is really more like it. Steve is a very proud man, so letting them do this for us has been very hard for him to accept.  But he’s realized that this is a way that all the people around us can help me, can take some sort of burden off of me.  It’s also a way for him to see how much love we have around us. I recently posted this on Facebook and I know…