Fingers Crossed!

Today, I went to Stanford Cancer Center for my infusion of PDL-1.  I met with the incomparable Dr. Holbrook Kohrt to discuss further what they saw in my scan and outline the plan of action.

It was a great visit today.  Holbrook said that he’s feeling very positive because he feels like we have my cancer under control.  While they don’t like to have any tumor get larger than 1 cm, he wasn’t too concerned. 

As he walked through my scans, I realized that I hadn’t quite understood George the other day.  Bottom line, they know that 2 of the spots that they’ve been watching are cancer.  One of those spots has decreased dramatically and the other has stayed stable.  The two other spots that have increased are actually lymph nodes – they don’t know what is in them.  The biopsy is to see if the growth of the lymph nodes is due to cancer or if it’s just inflammation caused by the drug.

I told Holbrook that George thought that it was probably cancer but wanted to know for sure.  He told me that oncologists have 10 rules that they live by and that one of those rules is that you never turn your back on cancer.  Therefore, they have to assume that the growth is due to cancer unless proven otherwise.  However, he did indicate that it is a real possibility that the growth in the lymph nodes is really just inflammation.

So – tomorrow (Friday), I will be heading back down to Stanford for a CT-guided biopsy of one of the lymph nodes.  If there’s cancer in there then we will move forward with our plan to radiate the tumors in the lymph nodes.  There is no need to radiate the other tumors because they are responding to the drug.

Please send all your “let it be inflammation” prayers my way at about noon tomorrow.

For Your List

You’re done crafting your New Year’s Resolution List, right? No? Good, because I wanted to sneak two more items onto your list:  1) Get a colonoscopy and 2) Write My Will/Trust. 

Some of you have followed my journey from the beginning.  Others of you have joined me much more recently.  Whenever you jumped in, I would imagine that you’re just relieved it’s not your journey.  I’d like for all of you to avoid the chemo, the surgeries, the ostomy bag, the physical and mental pain of dealing with a cancer diagnosis.  I’d like your families and friends not to be subjected to the pain of having a relative/ friend with a colon cancer diagnosis.  What’s the easiest way to do this?  Get a colonoscopy.  It is a very easy procedure and if they find polyps, they snip them off and you’re done.  Colon cancer is the most preventable form of cancer.  Please – prevent it.

As for writing your will/trust….I urge you not to wait until you are facing a life-threatening illness to do this.  It’s much more difficult to do it when you are faced with your own mortality.  If you’ve been putting this off, please just schedule some time and do it.  You’ll feel so much better.  

I’m not going to harass you any more (at least for awhile).  I just figured that as long as you have that list out – I wanted to make sure that you added these critical items.

Now, on to a great 2013!