Postby retiredteacher » Sun Feb 25, 2018 7:50 pm
Thank you Mike and Stoma and Claudia and Susan for the followup! You are amazing. Mike you may not remember posting an article detailing surgeon experience/outcome relationships - this was an eye opener for me and helped to seed the direction to go to Stanford (out of network.) As it turned out, the tumor after neo-adjuvant CRT was reduced to 3 cm located 12 cm from anal verge (Stanford MRI on Feb. 8.) In the OR, the surgeon determined that no ileostomy was required. I did feel prepared for an ileostomy <thanks to you sharing your a) challenges and b) expertise> if needed - imagine my shock when I woke up without hardware on my tummy. I thought maybe something had gone horribly wrong and the surgery was aborted, or that I was hallucinating from the drugs. No ileostomy. The surgeons were great - doc pulled in an OBGYN and they took out a remaining ovary and fallopian tube. The nurses on E3 were amazing - Pinky, Myra, Michol, Eric, Miss Nancy, Mike the Nurse Manager - could not be more impressed or happier. The baked custard!!! Like creme brûlée without the brûlée! I was trying to walk 10,000 steps daily leading up to surgery, am hitting just 5000 daily now. Path report came through yesterday, looks like 0/21 lymph nodes and just .3 cm “hot spot” left after treatment. Tired and sore but feeling really great overall and very happy. Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!
RC F 63 9/17
Adeno 7 cm MSS G2 PET
T3N0M0
2.5K Cap/RT x 25
"Near complete response" PET 1/18
CEA 0.5 10/17, 0.6 10/18
MRI 2/18 yT2N0 12 cm fr AV 3 cm
LAR 2/18 yT1N0M0 0/21 G1 0.3 cm
CAPEOX 3/18, reduced to 80% at cycle 3
Completed 4 cycles; stopped, gut issues, liver enzymes
CT/ colonoscopy 11/18 NED
4/19 NED Sacral fractures/osteoporosis
"Caregiver" to the Iron Man
Hubby CRC Stage 3 2004 NED, Small Cell Lung Cancer Limited 2011 NED, Non-small Cell Lung Cancer 2019 NED October 2019