The Colon Club

You might want to post a new thread about the pump plus Avastin. I hadn’t heard that was a no-no, but it could be that I just wasn’t tuned in because I wasn’t on Avastin!!

I started FOLFOX + Vectibix in October, had a seven week chemo break Dec / Jan due to infection and my consult at MSK early Feb. They opted to continue my current treatment and scheduled me for colon resection / pump placement late March.

The pump is only filled with chemo once a month; alternating times it just gets filled with saline. And the pump needs to continue to get the saline flushed once treatment is done, for several years. Luckily Northwestern was willing to learn how to do that, and I think others have had luck with local facilities too.

Still might be kind of fun to relocate to NY for six months if you could at your age! But that six months can stretch out once you consider time for surgery and then 4-6 months mop up chemo. So just something to consider.

I'd be surprised if any surgery could be done while on Avastin, considering that my husband isn't even allowed to get his teeth cleaned

Claudine wrote:I'd be surprised if any surgery could be done while on Avastin, considering that my husband isn't even allowed to get his teeth cleaned

Yeah that's what I was afraid of. Then the question is whether he should start on chemo first or get the pump installed. Probably chemo, huh?

ginabeewell wrote:You might want to post a new thread about the pump plus Avastin. I hadn’t heard that was a no-no, but it could be that I just wasn’t tuned in because I wasn’t on Avastin!!

I started FOLFOX + Vectibix in October, had a seven week chemo break Dec / Jan due to infection and my consult at MSK early Feb. They opted to continue my current treatment and scheduled me for colon resection / pump placement late March.

The pump is only filled with chemo once a month; alternating times it just gets filled with saline. And the pump needs to continue to get the saline flushed once treatment is done, for several years. Luckily Northwestern was willing to learn how to do that, and I think others have had luck with local facilities too.

Still might be kind of fun to relocate to NY for six months if you could at your age! But that six months can stretch out once you consider time for surgery and then 4-6 months mop up chemo. So just something to consider.

Yeah true, might be fun! I have work I can do wherever, as long as I have my laptop, so that helps. Did your mets grow during your chemo break? Jesper's cancer seems pretty aggressive - his CEA went up from 210 to 1100 during his 9-week chemo break. Still, it's super low compared to 70,000 at diagnosis. But he also responds super well to chemo, so that's a good thing of course.

I really hope I hear back from them tomorrow! So many things to consider... I don't know if they'll even offer the pump when he has so many lung mets. Hope so.

I texted my friend who is a nurse at MSK, works under a medical oncologist in their GI service. She said that Avastin has to be stopped when getting a pump placed because of risk of bleeding. It can be restarted after a sufficient time for healing. Hope this helps.

PS- I am on Avastin and I get daily nosebleeds... boohoo

rachelfromnyc wrote:I texted my friend who is a nurse at MSK, works under a medical oncologist in their GI service. She said that Avastin has to be stopped when getting a pump placed because of risk of bleeding. It can be restarted after a sufficient time for healing. Hope this helps.

Thank you! Yeah I had a feeling. But I feel like with his progression they might not want to delay chemo further, waiting for him to heal, etc. Maybe we can start with just FOLFOX and add in Avastin next time or something... I don't know. I'll make sure to get them on the phone tomorrow. Or wait, maybe even today! It's late in Denmark but I guess MSK is still open.

rachelfromnyc wrote:PS- I am on Avastin and I get daily nosebleeds... boohoo

I hated that part. So glad to be off of it!

Hope Jesper gets a plan of action soon! Yall hang in there.

AmyG wrote:

rachelfromnyc wrote:PS- I am on Avastin and I get daily nosebleeds... boohoo

I hated that part. So glad to be off of it!

Hope Jesper gets a plan of action soon! Yall hang in there.

Thanks Amy! I really hope MSK are less doom-and-gloom than our local oncologist. He's a nice guy, but is definitely a fan of reminding us that there is a big chance he can't be cured. We don't want some unicorn unrealistic doctor, but there's gotta be something in between....

Hey Alexandra, any luck with MSK? I was at 53rd St. today for treatment and the waiting room was the most crowded I've ever seen it. I asked around and a nurse told me Dr. K is in clinic on Mondays (I usually go on a different day) and from being around here, I know she is quite popular! Sending you good thoughts.

rachelfromnyc wrote:Hey Alexandra, any luck with MSK? I was at 53rd St. today for treatment and the waiting room was the most crowded I've ever seen it. I asked around and a nurse told me Dr. K is in clinic on Mondays (I usually go on a different day) and from being around here, I know she is quite popular! Sending you good thoughts.

Thank you so much for thinking of me, Rachel! I called them three times today. Apparently Jesper's medical files are with the clinical team now. The representative on his case told me she wants to give me an answer today, but nothing so far. I hope I get an answer today! I'm ready to go!!

Dr Kemeny is actually in Europe until Wednesday; so if they need her seal of approval, you may end up waiting a few more days for it. And I guess if they say no, you can always appeal to her once she’s back!

Please remember that although dr. Kemeny is the go to expert on the HAI protocol, the decision is not automatically hers alone. The whole team over there works on the selection and treatment of all the patients. As a matter of fact when I originally went there I had no idea what HAI was or who Kemeny was. I was there to see a different oncologist. Treatment started and eventually I ended up with the pump. It was explained to me that it would be an effective treatment for me, I agreed and asked few if any questions. Only one time was her name brought up, when my onc wanted to run some of my liver tests by her, she decided to withhold treatment for that one round. I’ve never met her. My point is that one shouldn’t hang all hope on having her as your oncologist and no one else. I’m certain that all their oncologists are ready and able and probably have a much better bedside manner.

ginabeewell wrote:Dr Kemeny is actually in Europe until Wednesday; so if they need her seal of approval, you may end up waiting a few more days for it. And I guess if they say no, you can always appeal to her once she’s back!

Oh dang!! I really hope they just say yes. But if not, I guess we can do a few rounds of FOLFOX and send them the update after that and they might say yes at that point. It's frustrating to not hear back for so long.

The other annoying thing is that I actually finished translating his medical files before we got home from Mexico, but I only had his pathology report hard copy at home in our apartment in Copenhagen. So as soon as we got back, I translated that last page and sent it off right away. If it had been online like the rest of his medical records I could have sent everything in advance.

radnyc wrote:Please remember that although dr. Kemeny is the go to expert on the HAI protocol, the decision is not automatically hers alone. The whole team over there works on the selection and treatment of all the patients. As a matter of fact when I originally went there I had no idea what HAI was or who Kemeny was. I was there to see a different oncologist. Treatment started and eventually I ended up with the pump. It was explained to me that it would be an effective treatment for me, I agreed and asked few if any questions. Only one time was her name brought up, when my onc wanted to run some of my liver tests by her, she decided to withhold treatment for that one round. I’ve never met her. My point is that one shouldn’t hang all hope on having her as your oncologist and no one else. I’m certain that all their oncologists are ready and able and probably have a much better bedside manner.

Got you, that makes sense. Thanks! I also just want a second opinion in general, and a surgical consultation to find out what is needed. Over here he is automatically disqualified from any surgery because he has lung mets. I know of people who have had liver resections in spite of lung mets, so I'd like to know if they would consider his liver resectable at this point, after a few rounds of chemo. His liver mets are all under 3 cm now and as far as I could tell on his CT scan, the larger ones are close to the surface. Ablation might be a possibility too. Maybe they could do a combine resection of certain segments with wedge resections and ablation, like they did with Ginabeewell. Since all his lung mets are small and he is young and strong, I'm hoping they might consider fixing his liver.