Hi everyone,
My dad has just been diagnosed with stage 4 small bowel cancer (i know this is a colon board, but small bowel is very rare - thus hard to find specific info).. As you can imagine, we are all devastated.. he is 67, seems perfectly healthy.. liver mets were found during unrelated gallbladder surgery. Biospsies, coloscopy, gastroscopy, MRI, TEP, etc.. were all done in the last couple of weeks and he was started on Folfox yesterday.
We were told he has 15 liver lesions, all around or under 1cm in size, both lobes affected (no lymph nodes, nothing in lungs, etc..). Because of the high number of disseminated lesions, this surgery is impossible for now, although he will still meet with a liver onco-surgery team next week. We are gearing for bad news again.. I know surgery would be is only curative treatment option.. for now, only palliative chemo will be offered, not even removing the primary tumor as it's irrelevant given the mets if i understand right. His oncologist says that if he responds well to chemo, he might become a surgery candidate - so that's our only hope..
So i was wondering if anyone has gone through resection of multiple liver mets (non-anatomical resections) or other treatments (laser ? intrahepatic chemo ? ) and would love to read your stories..
Also, any support is welcome - i am in the medical field myself (although not oncology) so i'm really struggling to come to terms with this.. i also can read the medical literature and see very poor prognosis even with chemo in his situation. My dad still thinks he is travelling this winter and next summer.. and it's so heartbreaking to think of what could happen - in the same time, i don't want to break his hopes and it may just be what gets him through and brings us a miracle ?!