Im getting my sixth round of chemo right now. Im officially halfway done with the treatments. Im excited... its all downhill from here (knock on wood)
Just to recap and fill in some blanks, here is whats happening..
In the middle of June, I went to an outdoor Doobie Brothers Concert, then two days later the results of a colonoscopy came back and I was diagnosed with Colon Cancer..
While still in shock and disbelief, I immediately emailed my friend Shyam, who is a surgeon with the US Navy, but he was in Iraq saving lives at the time. He helped me by answering my many questions via email and setting me at ease.
I got some scans done and it showed a small 3cm mass in the wall of my colon which appeared to be a Stage I tumor, which is good.
Following that, I met with several surgeons to see what my options were. One was at University of Chicago, and another was at Northwestern Memorial, the top two hospitals in the area.
I went with Dr. Steven Stryker, because he had the most experience and also felt very comfortable doing the surgery as a "Laparoscopically Assisted" procedure which meant smaller incisions and faster recovery time. He actually wrote a very important paper comparing Laparoscopic vs Open Surgery some time ago showing that the two are equally safe procedures.(Here is an abstract on it)The surgery went very well and already my scars from the incisions are fading.
Next I researched on my own, and started on a regimen of alternative medicines including ACHH, to raise the immune system, and Avemar, a substance shown to regulate the white blood cells and fight cancer.
I had surgery on July 12th. A few says later, the pathology report came back showing that this tumor skipped over stage II, and went straight to stage III; 4 out of 21 lymph nodes harvested from surgery contained stray cancer cells. Strong chemo would be necessary.
I had another small outpatient surgery to implant a port in my chest. Basically it looks like this . It rests under the skin below my collar bone and the tube feeds directly into a main artery that goes to the heart. I dont even feel it and all you would see is a slight lump under my skin. It is used as a way to give me chemo rather than constantly pricking a vein in my arm to connect an IV. After these treatments are all done, after a few months to make sure everything is allright, there will be another short surgery to remove it.
Who will be giving me chemo? I again investigated several options. Northwestern's Robert Lurie Cancer Center was one, a local option was another, and another Oncology group located across the street from Northwestern was a third option. After doing my homework, and individually meeting with several Oncologists, I chose Dr John Shaw at Hematology Oncology Associates of Illinois. He came highly recommended and also we seemed to get along the best.
He put me on FOLFOX which is the first-line chemo for Colon Cancer. FOLFOX is an acronym for three drugs. (Folonic Acid, also known as Leucovorin, 5-FU or Fluorouracil, and Oxaliplatin, also called Oxaliplatinum.)
In addition, I got into a Clinical Trial for Erbitux, a very new kind of chemo drug that attacks cancer cells based on a protein that exists on the outer cell wall. This protein is also found in skin cells so it provides a nice rash on my face. Because Im in the study, I was assigned a special Chemo-Dermatologist at Northwestern to basically thwart off skin problems that can develop, so that I will be able to take Erbitux non-stop for the entire length of the treatment. More on this in a future post.
OK.
In addition, I continued biking and rode over 400 miles this summer. Half of that time I was on chemo. Now its too cold to bike so I have to find something else to do. In the interim I have started sleeping more - as in 13 hour stretches. Its obvious that exercise makes a difference, so its time to get moving doing some aerobic exercise.
On Sundays I have been lifting weights with my cousin Daryl, at City Wide Super Slow in order to gain muscle mass and come out of this looking and feeling better than I did before. I have to say that my muscles are looking pretty good these days all things considered... (A more detailed post to follow on this)
Finally, I have also been attending a yoga class on Wednesdays which has been really great for having a peaceful mind, and stretching my body to keep it in shape.
Its all helping.
On top of it, I really appreciate my friends, relatives, and co-workers for being so supportive throughout this ordeal. This is the kind of thing where I could easily feel disconnected and isolated from people in general, but that has not been the case, in fact I feel more of a connection than before, to the people who are close to me, as well as people in general.
