There Is No Stage Five

Wednesday's not-a-surgery turned out to be more a-surgery than I'd prepared myself for, but in any case, a success!   The surgery was done laparoscopically with the great bonus to that being that there's video of the process.  Just that alone made my little nerd heart very happy to see.  I've said many, many times throughout this process that I wish I could see what was happening inside my body.  Now I know!  The tumors turn a pale white as they're treated with the microwaves and die.  All of the doctors were impressed at the response and they've seen and done this quite a lot.   Bagel bite got a pass on this one and we'll do a follow up treatment depending on how the liver mets respond over the next few months.  BB is very small and very superficial, so there are multiple options there.  Before the surgery, they collected cells from the tumors to make a "vaccine" that is currently in the process of being made for me.  It's qui...

Oops.   I really do have every intention of getting home and at least doing one more post to say I'm home--wouldn't that wrap it up nicely?  Of course it would, but no, then I don't do it.  In defense of my attention span, we woke up at home on my mom's birthday, my brother and sister-in-law arrived to surprise her (and us!), and that's way more fun and important than ticky typing a blog with my whereabouts.  Evidence of fall: pumpkin carving, end of the flower field, fuzzy horses, and a melting cat. Though, in truth, I did write a furiously long post, then reread it and deleted it.  I was remembering a consult I had with my original surgeon in WA.  This was last summer when liver and bagel bite joined the party and I wanted to talk to him about surgery, as it seemed to be the best option at the time.  He summarized my questions and concerns and replied with, if you're trying to avoid (physical) pain, you're not going to be able to.  Cancer a...

I'll get over the tortoise thing eventually, but today's not the day. I had an interstitial treatment to my liver today, and was positioned in a way that I could actually watch it all on the ultrasound.  I wish I had it on video, it was so freakin' cool.  First step, lidocaine.  Second step, inject photosensitizer directly into the liver and tumors.  The photosensitizer looks like shooting stars across the screen.  A whole universe of them.  A whole lot of wishes and I didn't miss a single one.  Third, he showed me a (rather substantial *gulp*) needle against the computer screen to show me how he was going to place it to thread the fiber optic through--fairly superficially because then the laser could treat the entire area of shooting stars.  Too deep would basically black out anything that the end of the needle had passed.  The laser intensity and duration has all been more this trip.  Nothing has changed in terms of the therapies, it's...

We met with the surgeon today to talk about what he thinks would be the best next step.  PDT has opened a lot of doors that weren't open in August.  Because of the lack of blood flow, radioablation, cryotherapy, and microwave ablation are now all options.  I've heard of exactly none of them when it came to treating non-dermal cancers.  The theory and application is actually very similar to PDT.  Ehh, similar, but different. In my case, radioablation is too non-specific and cryotherapy works on too small an area.  Microwave ablation, however, I'm an excellent candidate.  Music to my ears!  He says it's the most controllable of the three and will be the most efficient procedure and recovery.   He said they can sometimes actually see the tumors shrinking during the procedure.  It's done in a CT with an interventional radiologist.  I asked him, since he's a surgeon, if he'd recommend surgery over anything else, and he said no, beca...

There hasn't been much to update on since the previous update.  Something about a watched pot... Leannda and I got back to Mexico on Sunday afternoon and have been assimilating into Mexican medical life again.  Bloodwork and an ultrasound on Monday, an MRI/detox from MRI contrast on Tuesday, and an interstitial treatment today.   MRI had ambiance--they play seagull and beach noises through the headphones to join the cacophony of  bangs, clicks, and horns.  Very soothing.  *cawsplash* (Also, cost update: $230 plus $40 for dvd and printed films) The good: Labs look great.  Really no major changes, but a couple of levels that would indicate some inflammation--no big surprise there.  The "I'm making cancer" parts are all trending towards "I'm not making cancer."  Not just in a "normal for a cancer patient"way, but in a "normal for a normal human" way, which is very encouraging.  The ultrasound that showed little to no blood flow to the ...

Also, I'm back in Mexico.  Olé! Not Mexico This trip was planned.  Sort of.  There are plans and then there's what happens.  I think there's a plan and then that plan becomes a different plan and things happen whenever they do.  Embrace it and show up is the name of the game. Mexico: New friends Old old friend.  Lobo smooshed his face into me when I said hi to him.  I'm not sure if he wanted snuggles or if he just lost his balance and had a crash landing, but it made me happy either way.   I got here Sunday night for an early and very busy Monday.  Started with an ultrasound, then lab work, an interstitial treatment (BB got a pass this time...lucky), and the usual many liters of IVs.  Because everything moved so fast, I didn't have much of a chance to be concerned about the ultrasound report.  Until the busy Monday ended and I got to wondering.  Every single cancer patient I've met has the same scan trepidation and I'm no ...

Familiar scenes: Familiar activities: Still charging...  The fiber optic goes from la machina, through the orange cord, which then threads through the catheter into my vein.  The red light is the tip of the fiber optic shining from inside my arm. I had 4 whole days without treatment!  Free of the IV tree, I could frolic about wherever I wanted!  Even the take home medications didn't need to start until this week, so the end of last week and weekend felt nearly normal.  The swelling and heat have still hung around for the most part, so we're still cooking even without daily provocation.   I've gone to Bellevue every day this week for IV laser therapy with my naturopath.  In Mexico, so many things happened at once, it was hard to tell what was making me feel which way.  I was curious how this would go with having the IV laser by itself.  If there was any doubt, it is impressively powerful.  By the evening, I had a sweaty little micro ...