Next Steps Post Liver Resection/ostomy takedown

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sallya
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Next Steps Post Liver Resection/ostomy takedown

Postby sallya » Wed Mar 24, 2010 4:17 pm

Hi friends,

Just wanted to give a quick update on Nick's recovery and treatment plans post liver resection/ostomy takedown. It's been about a month now since he had 4 spots removed from his liver and had his ileostomy reversed. We met with his oncologist yesterday and he said he was very "encouraged" by the surgical outcome. All the margins are clean and they think they addressed all of the cancer in the liver so that's good (we already had that info from the surgeon but we'll take good news as many times as we can get it!). His CEA has been at 2.5 for about 6 months (was 17 at diagnosis).

Nick's surgical wounds are almost healed and once they are fully closed, his oncologist wants to start him on chemo again but instead of folfox + Avastin, he'll be on xeloda + inotrecan on the three week infusion + pill regimen. We aren't familiar with that chemo regimen yet but it looks like, from other posts on this board, people have tolerated that combo pretty well compared to the oxy? So new baseline CT scan in two weeks followed by 4-6 chemo treatments and then another scan.

I think Nick was a little disappointed (as was I) that he'll be back on chemo but his doctor said that studies show really good results for 4-6 chemo rounds post liver resection so that's all the convincing we needed.

Overall, Nick has recovered from the liver resection very nicely - he has his energy back and has even started riding his bike again. The ileo reversal has been a lot more difficult. I think his experiences are similar to a lot of people on this board's - frequent bms, "butt burn," etc. No fun.

Last night he started throwing up in the middle of the night and was eventually throwing up bile. We were worried about a blockage so he went into the doctors office this morning and they did an x-ray. They think it was just food poisoning but it was a bit of a scare. I really hope they are right and they aren't overlooking anything.

Other than that, he's been doing really well! Fingers crossed that this next round of chemo is tolerable and then he can get a break for awhile.

Best wishes to everyone!!!
Wife of "Dom;" dx 7/3/09
Stage IV with 4 mets to the liver and ~25 affected nodes
Colon resection 7/6/09
Ileo 7/6/09
Starting Folfox + Avastin 8/13
www.dominicsally.blogspot.com

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