Still Hope

Catching up from last week --

Tim had an MRI and a CT scan last Wednesday and we saw his oncologist for the results on Thursdays. In some ways, it was a mixed bag of information. His lungs show no growth in size or number and it even appears that some of the lesions are responding to the chemo. The rectal tumor and associated areas appear to be stable. However, there is at least on new lesion on the liver. For now he will continue with four more cycles of his current chemo regimen and then rescan again to assess the liver and consider other treatment options. I asked exactly what this meant as the liver surgeon had previously talked about ablating any future spots. Dr. Nelson explained that he would switch Tim back to Folfox which is a combination of chemo drugs that includes oxaliplatin - the drug that he was on prior to the liver resection that caused the most severe side effects. He would prefer not to do an ablation at this time because it would mean going off of chemo and his fear is that the other areas will grow. He saw both surgeons yesterday and everyone appears to be on the same page. We are thankful that the entire team is working together and there are still options to manage his disease.

Some days you wouldn't know Tim's body has been invaded by this awful disease and others he struggles to get out of the recliner. He is trying to learn his limits and not overdo it, but the energizer bunny doesn't really know when to stop until he runs out of batteries. This last treatment did not go as smoothly as the one before. He was sick Friday evening through most of Sunday and slept quite a bit. The newest development is frequent nosebleeds which is a common side effect of the avastin. This means they will likely be monitoring his platelets and his susceptibility for anemia. Pray that we adjust to some sort of normal life and that we don't take anything for granted.