It’s been a minute since I posted anything, and I just threw a backdated update from a week and a half ago when I was minding my own business and ended up in the hospital for 5 days with a fever and the worst blood numbers I have had, probably ever. They still don’t know what caused that, and I have been ordered not to do it again, so I am working on that. Here’s the current state of my guts.
Surgery is still scheduled for November 15th to open me all the way up, take out my sigmoid colon and a bunch of lymph nodes, my gall bladder, and basically shred my liver to get all the little spots out. That has not changed. I learned my colon will be held together with titanium staples, so I’ll have titanium on both ends of my digestive system. Kinda neat.
We had the pre-op physical a few days ago and prep for bowel surgery is similar to prep for colonoscopy, except instead of all the nooks and crannies being clean, the goal is to wipe out as much bacteria in my gut as possible to help avoid infection. This means I can have red jello, but I am also going to dose myself with a literal shitload of antibiotics in the middle of chugging gatorade mixed with miralax. Then I will be unconscious for basically the entire next day, then I will be on liquids for a day or two after. The first solid food is going to be my new favorite forever.
Today I had a number of appointments. That number was 3. The first one, and most important, was a referral to a new and fun cancer clinic to take a look at what I am referring to as my backup cancer. I haven’t talked about it much because I have been focused on surviving the colon cancer that is actively fucking me up, but there is a 1cm lesion on my left kidney, perched up there like the pom-pom on a winter hat, and my GI surgeon suggested that “while we’re in there, maybe someone from Urology wants to hop over and lop this off at the same time” and setup a referral. Today was that meeting. The first thing they said to me when I met the NP was “Who the hell is your surgeon? They’re a real bulldog. Called us up and tried to bully us into joining in on the surgery next week.” I love my surgeon.
Apparently there are not a lot of emergency surgeries at short notice in the Urology section of cancer care. It was a good meeting though, and the cancer there is not a metastasized lump of the CRC, but a coincidental second redundant cancer that is slow-growing and unlikely to spread. The specialists want to watch it over time since all signs show my kidney function is normal and it hasn’t changed much if at all over the many scans I have gotten the past 3.5 months. I will see them again in 6 months and we can decide if intervention is required, or more watching, or if it is one of those things that will bother me in 20 years if I live that long and in that case, not really something to worry about.
Bloodwork came back mostly normal for the first time since diagnosis. That makes sense because I have been off chemo for 3 weeks and I have been exercising and resting and hydrating and all the good things I need to do to put myself in a place to make it through this. I am ready for the knife. Cut me doc!
Oncology has been “chart-stalking” me for the past 3 weeks and apparently cheering me on behind my back. It was a really good meeting with them this afternoon. They’re 100% behind the decision to stop chemo early and go for surgery. I will go back on chemo 4-6 weeks after The Cutting for another few months to try and make sure they got everything that doesn’t show up on scans.
It’s not clear yet how long the next round of chemo will be. It will still be FOLFIRINOX. It will be between 2 and 6 months. I am going to hope it’s 2 and try not to think too much more about it.
It is likely that at some point during adjuvant chemo they will pull the Oxaliplatin out of the regimen and switch to FOLFIRI to avoid permanent neuropathy in my extremities, which is a small good thing, I guess. I have learned how to tolerate chemo as well as I think anyone can, and I hate it as much as anyone can hate a thing that is necessary to stay alive.
So that’s that. If you’re reading this, you’re all caught up. I have to stay healthy until, through, and after surgery. I am physically in decent shape. I am mentally a little bit freaked out because I have never had surgery before so leave it to me to have the first one open me up from stem to stern and scoop out a substantial part of multiple organs. I will be in a lot of pain and probably confused and stupid. I’ll post a lot.
Happy Wednesday my dudes!