Today was the Day

Thank God we got some good news today. No new cancer, some tumors shrunk and everything else stayed the same. The next step is surgery. And soon. They want to do it before Christmas. I will know more on Monday when I call to schedule a consultation with the surgeon.  They want to move quickly because if it is not done within the next few weeks, I will have to have another chemo blast and that will delay the surgery and on and on. So Merry Christmas to me.

This is why the surgery is a good thing. It will take out the primary tumor, the parts of my colon that perforated, the cancerous lymph nodes and peritoneum. The idea is to get all of this out, especially the part of my colon that perforated, so they can use more aggressive drugs on my liver. This surgery will not touch the liver. Another good thing is I might be able to eat more normally, and will be in less pain (after the big giant pain of surgery).

Dr B. is hot to use a drug called Avastin. It is supposed to be a super tumor shrinker. So fast, in fact, that colons that have perforated will rip if it used. That is why they have to get that section of colon out of there. Chemo will start again as soon as 6 weeks after surgery- depending on how quickly I heal. That seems a little mean, but I am going to believe this is the best course of action to get this unwelcome crap out of my body.

I am not afraid of surgery. I am afraid of the pain, how Pat and Bennett will cope, what chemo might be like after surgery but these are all things that can wait. For tonight I am just going to revel in the fact that I have less cancer in me than I did four months ago and that makes me pretty happy. Oh, it was almost hard to use that word. It's been a long time since I've had any good news about this process, and now I have some. Yay.