Still NED and other news from Mayo

[Gravelyguy]

Got a great early Christmas present yesterday. All scans and CEA look great!

It was a good visit for sure. A couple of interesting things, I asked about milestones that I can be looking for as far as recurrence. She said they go off of end of chemo. The first year is a biggie as they see most recurrence within that first year.

The second milestone is 3 years post chemo. She said if you make it through that time, your chance of recurrence goes way down. She went on to say that they typically do surveillance for 5 years but because I am stage 4 and a good candidate for Re resections, if needed, they will be monitoring me for 10 years. I guess the latest research for stage 4 is that you are considered cured at 10 years.

I think that is pretty great that they have a large enough pool of stage 4 folks still kicking around after 10 years to collect data from!

I was hoping to meet with the LARS researchers but something changed and they were not available so hopefully I will be able to meet with them in 6 months when I head back there.

Praying you all have a Christmas full of great memories!

Dave

[Deb m]

So happy for you. Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!

[boxhill]

Merry Christmas! It's wonderful to have scanxiety off your back!!!

I am actually having my scan on Dec 23rd, and meeting with my oncologist on Christmas Eve for review and possible infusion. I'm hoping for a nice Christmas present also. I've been agonizing about whether to go off Keytruda now and try to recover from my inflamed joints and reestablish a more normal life, with the idea that if something crops up I can go back on it. My last 2 CTs have been "stable" in that the previously enlarged lymph nodes continue to look normal, and the tiny (about 5mm) liver node continues to be there. It hasn't grown, it may have shrunk a little bit. It may be necrotic. It's too small to tell, too small to biopsy, too near the edge of the liver (right below the capsule) to zap, and at last consult the Tumor Board refused to okay removing it. So maybe I've actually been NED since at least May and maybe not.

I've had the bright idea that maybe a liquid biopsy would reveal whether there was active cancer anywhere. If not, more reason to go off Keytruda.

And then there are my poor liver numbers, a more recent development. Maybe that will take it out of my hands.

[DarknessEmbraced]

Congratulations and Merry Christmas!

[stu]

This is my mum’s 11 th Christmas since diagnosis. Something I never imagined possible . So good to hear your news .
It’s been amazing the last few weeks to see people from ten years ago pop back on .
That was not so readily available ten years ago when my mum started out . Lots of boundaries have been pushed since then . The new kids on the block MSS and MSI along with immunotherapy were not even talked about.
I quietly hope there is more treatments in the pipeline to swell the stats . That would be a fabulous new year gift !
I wish you a wonderful New Year .
Stu

[CRguy]

MEGA CHEERS and Harmony buddy

Here's to a whole lotta milestones and NED coming your way

Merry Christmas
CRguy

[Atoq]

That was really good news! Happy Xmas!

All the best

Claudia

[mpbser]

Great news! Have a wonderful holiday!

[Punky44]

Awesome news! Congratulations!

[juliej]

Got a great early Christmas present yesterday. All scans and CEA look great!

And what an ABSOLUTELY GREAT Christmas present!

The road was long and hard, but you made it! Keep chalking up those milestones!

Juliej