Questions about My Friend

[friendwithquestions]

My 37 year old girlfriend was recently diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. Needless to say, we're all terrified. She had the surgery last week to remove the tumor. The next step is to begin chemo to shrink the lesion they found in her liver. I'm wondering why she hasn't had catscan yet to show if the disease has spread elsewhere. Some doctor's have kept our spirts up- others have been a bit grim. Just looking for some similar stories or answers...Thank you!

[missjv]

hi,
well your friend needs to go to a place where they deal with a large amount of colon cancer cases where she will have a team of docs, surgeons, etc. stage 4 is not an automatic death sentence and there are many treatment options available that keep people living for along time. i was diagnosed stage 4 in june 06 and currently show no evidence of any cancer according to scans and tumor marker tests. i traveled far from home for treatment because where i lived liver resection surgery is not done or hepatic artery chemo is not done. i went from a local doc telling me i had 2 years to live because of some stupid outdated statistic to docs telling me i have a good chance of beating this stuff as my cancer was not large or extensive. so where you get care can determine the outcome i believe, but of course what works for one might not work for others but at 37 your friend needs the best treatments she can possibly get. she needs to do her research and take charge of her care. good luck.


missjv

[rthornton]

Hi. I am also 37 years old, and two years ago was diagnosed stage IV with liver mets (and one possible lung met but that was never confirmed). I don't know her history of CT, PET, MRI scans, etc, but I know that I got a PET scan just before my colon resection in May '05, and not again until four months later to check the progress of shrinking the liver tumors, which were originally considered inoperable based upon the initial CT/PET scan results. And, by the way, after six chemotherapy cycles, all of my cancer had disappeared. I have heard that excessive scans can be not-so-good for the patient, so doctor's don't go overboard in ordering them (not to mention the cost of getting scanned). They can watch your friend's bloodwork for CEA counts (which is not, in itself, a conclusive diagnostic tool) in the meantime, and work with her to manage chemotherapy side effects. Feel free to ask if you or she have specific questions about managing chemotherapy side effects.

Best withes to her.

[seussfan]

I am Stage III and had emergency surgery on March 5th. I was told that I could not have a CT/PET scan until at least 28 days AFTER my surgery. They don't want any false-positives to show up on it.

[missjv]

hi,
how was the lesion found on her liver? was it found during colon surgery? it seems a scan would be done before the start of treatments so they had a baseline to go on to see how she is responding to chemo. in my experience i had cat scan, then pet scan at diagnosis along with liver biopsy. i then had another scan after 4 months of chemo before i had liver resection surgery to see if there was any progress with the chemo and have a scan coming up next month from post surgery to check the liver. i have had quite a few scans probably too many i hope they back off on them soon cause it can't be good for you. she needs to question everything docs say and do. i did question why so many scans and docs said in my case i had alot of fluid in my lungs and around liver post surgery and all these scans are to make sure it went away which it did thank goodness but anymore scans i will start to glow. have her and you do research on treatment centers, docs, surgeons, different drugs, different treatments for the liver, print out what you find that looks useful and bring it to docs attention.


missjv

[Carolyn JB]

I am also stage IV and am 36 years old - diagnosed in Jan. I had a ct scan before my surgery - which showed something on the liver - that was biopsied during my surgery (and confirmed it was a mestasis). In Feb. after my first oncology appt. I had a PET/CT scan. Which again confirmed the liver but the was inconclusive on the lung nodules. I am scheduled to have another ct scan on the 26th - after my 5th treatment to see how the liver tumor is doing and what the lung nodules are doing. I don;tif this info helps at all but definitely ask tons of questions about why they are doing things a certain way, etc!

Carolyn