The hard week continues. Off to PMH to see the liver doctor. We wait for 2 hours. Notice I am not talking about anything that happened in the morning. Nothing happened in the morning. We did not exist.
We finally get in to see the doctor. But it is not Dr. Gallinger, but someone called Nanji, a Fellowe. We are waiting in the consult room, which the officious nurse did not lock. It turns out to be a longer wait than we expected. Janet looks at me and decides to get me something to eat. Dr. Nanji comes in soon after she leaves. We don’t cover that much ground before she comes back with a bean salad from Druxy’s. I am very hungry and apologise to the doctor for eating while he talks. Was not expecting a 2 hour delay or would have come prepared. Then a very strange thing happened. Not sure if it happened because I was so hungry, or what. The doctor gave us the prognosis. He had spoken with Dr. Kennedy the night before, had looked at the CT Scans and X-Rays. No doubt about what was going on. No need for a biopsy. As he is talking, I realise that I am extremely calm. Almost like an out of body experience. We must be talking about someone else. But I am fully aware that we are talking about me, but I am still eerily calm and composed. I keep eating and ask my questions.
Colon operation first, then chemotherapy. We have to remove the primary source to stop the cancer from re-infecting the liver. Chemotherapy first is used sometimes when there is a chance of reducing the size of the primary source. In my case, the primary source is too advanced. Chemotherapy treatment could provoke the tumour and it might burst. Told you there was a monster lurking inside. Cannot take a chance on the colon tumour bursting as it would really mess things up. Can you just imagine all that poo going everywhere inside your body? Yuk!
So we remove the primary source, then recover, then chemo the hell out of the body for two months to kill any lingering cancer cells that are in the bloodstream or elsewhere. Some of the cells are too small for us to see. The initial chemo will kill them all. It should also reduce the size of the metastasized cells on the liver. That is important because it affects the amount of the liver that has to be removed. The less we remove the better. No kidding! But both lobes of the liver are infected. The procedure will required the removal of some of the liver, then more chemo while the liver regenerates. Apparently, the liver regenerates in 6 to 8 weeks. That is so cool. Then the other section is removed and more chemo for 2 months. Basically a year of treatments. And again, not to worry, a 5 year survival rate is quite common. Whatever. That door is closed.
Suppertime by the time we leave. Not much happened for the rest of the evening. Eat, mope, sleep, cope.
Faroukh, John Miller (Nancy’s handsome older brother) here. Nancy just gave me your blog URL during a recent discussion provoked by our father, who can’t seem to keep himself out of the ER down in Lebanon, PA.
I haven’t read top to bottom yet. Started at top and jumped to bottom. I will read. Thank you for doing this, and so sorry that you need to. Telling the story and feeling it at my end connects us together. It seems to be important to be about that. I’ll try to process at my end, and hope that I can pick up a piece of this and carry just a tiny bit. If everyone can do that, it might get a few grams lighter at your end? Looking forward to another visit. Look at some photos. Tell each other stuff. Eat some food at Nancy’s?