The Port is In Place!

Steve starts radiation today.  He’ll have 10 treatments, Monday-Friday, to keep the tumors that they just removed in surgery, from growing back quickly and compress his spine again. He definitely doesn’t want to have that happen again. He had a CT Scan earlier this week to set up the radiation and the table he had to lay on was very hard so he was in a lot of pain afterwards.  It’s not the same pain as before the surgery but a different area and different type of pain.  But pain is pain. We’ve been spending all our time together since he can’t really go anywhere on his own.  It’s actually been pretty nice because it’s been quality time.  He seems more relaxed about the whole…

Yesterday Steve finished his 2nd round of chemo and he did well.  No real big side effects except he feels really tired.  But this morning he’s still feeling good. 2 down, many more to go!  Let’s hope it’s working!

Steve is at Rhode Island hospital and he’s scheduled to have surgery today.  And he’s still smiling… He’s not going to give up easily and without a smile on his face.  I admire that about him so much!

Tomorrow will be Steve’s 12th Chemo treatment and his last one for this 6 month set.  We thought 6 months actually went till January but nope, it’s done tomorrow.  But that just means it’s time to change it up a bit. Currently Steve is receiving the FOLFOX cocktail of chemotherapy which consists of 5-FU, Leucovorin, and Oxaliplatin.  I am slowly learning about each of these drugs.  The 5-FU is the one that was causing the mouth sores and is also the one that he gets on a slow drip for the 48 hours at home.  You may recall that in October he reduced that one by 15% to hopefully stop the mouth sores – and it worked!  We’ve checked his CEA number once since the…

Today Steve and I went to Dana Faber to meet with a research doctor in Gastrointestinal Cancers to talk about possible clinical trials.  We did our research and talked with Steve’s Oncologist in Warwick beforehand and we were pretty sure there wasn’t anything that Steve qualified for so we weren’t expecting much.  But figured a ride there wouldn’t hurt. And it didn’t hurt, nor did it help. We were correct.  There is nothing right now for Steve’s specific cancer and mutation of his cancer.  However, the doctor did offer to test Steve’s original biopsy sample to see if it has a specific mutation that it wasn’t tested for back in June 2014.  While the doctor doesn’t think Steve’s cancer has this mutation according to other…