Christian's Cancer Journey

We went to the hospital for an appt. with Dr. Clark (surgeon) this afternoon. He is the one that will be doing the liver surgery.  He showed us MRI images and explained where the remaining big tumors are located, and the process of the liver resection. He said he will be taking out most of the right lobe of the liver. He estimates he will be removing 65 to 70 percent of the liver.  We asked him if he would be doing it laparoscopically or if it would be an open surgery, and he said it would be open, because of the amount of liver that needs to be removed, along with a few other things. All in all the appointment went very well. He was very informative, and answered all of our questions. He scheduled the surgery for Friday October 1st.  That is the soonest he could get it scheduled because of Covid. I won't go into all of the details of why this surgery is considered "elective", but it is, and we can't change that. The hospital is pushing all elective surgeries out, bec

  No it's not a glitch in the matrix, I had to pause and restart the video twice because my dog is crazy and likes to randomly bark for no reason. Just another part of my life I get to share with everyone. Maybe it will put a smile on someone's face.  :)  - Christian

  Just a quick video to update you guys on my hair and how my care plan has changed over time. I think at some point in the video I say "four scans" when I mean "four treatments", but I'm not in the mood to redo the whole video just for that. It is what it is. Lol. I hope everyone has a good weekend. - Christian

Peace out Cancer Cells!  Don't let the door hit ya on the way out, or do, I really don't care.  My MRI and CT scans show everything is continuing to shrink. God is good! You all know I had my MRI this past Friday, and the good results from that (from Kenny's previous post). Kenny & I went Monday morning (yesterday) to get my CT scans done (chest & pelvis).  After that, we had some time to kill, as our appt with Dr. Paluri wasn't until later that day.  So we went to eat breakfast at First Watch. Then we went to Academy Sports & Sam's Club. Yes, I know it sounds like an epic time lol.  1pm came around, so we made our way back to the hospital and met with Dr. Paluri. He showed us some of the images, and discussed the scan readings.  He confirmed all of the good news on the MRI that we had seen on the report online. He said that the response to treatment was exceptional! They were very happy with how the tumors were shrinking. He said they were going to disc

          I know Christian posted on here this past Tuesday (Aug 10th) talking about what a treatment week looked like. I just wanted to share how the rest of her week has been, and also share some info on the MRI results we just got back (sooner than expected). The fatigue really hit her on Wednesday (as it kind of has been). So she was pretty wiped out Wednesday & Thursday. A lot of couch and TV time. Her sister Jen was able to come hang out with her a little bit, so that was really nice. Friday she began to feel a little better. Still a little tired but not as much as the previous two days. Today (Saturday) she seems to be feeling a lot better, so I think we are coming out of the woods on this cycle. Yesterday afternoon I took her to have her Liver MRI done. Usually we do not see the findings on her MyWakeHealth for a few days. The MRI was done in the cancer center of the main hospital (instead of the separate MRI building) this time, so maybe they get the findings put together

If you've ever wondered what a treatment week looks like for me, well this is basically it. Just me on the couch with my mongrel (the dog), Franklin the Eighth (my 5FU pump), my gloves, and plenty of food and room temperature drinks. Not very exciting, but much needed recovery time.  I found these drinks at Food Lion that really help me stay hydrated. They have several different flavors. I try to drink a few of them a day especially on the first few days after treatment. I have found that staying hydrated helps me feel not quite as tired. I hope everyone has a great day. I'm sure Kenny will be updating you later in the week. - Christian  

 Today Christian had her 8th chemo treatment. The treatment went about the same as it has been the past few times. She slept thru most of it again as she got the IV Benadryl which makes her very sleepy.   Dr. Paluri was not there today, so Oliva (Dr. Paluri's APP) was meeting with patients instead. Christian explained to Olivia that her cold sensitivity and neuropathy lingered further into her "off week" than it has been doing in the past.  Olivia said that since the general consensus for Christian's path forward was that she would hopefully be having a break from chemo after this cycle (explained below), we were going to stay the regular dosage of Oxali for this cycle.  If there was no break from chemo tentatively planned, she would more than likely reduce the dosage to help with how long those two side effects were hanging around. They did end up reducing the 5-FU dosage slightly today, but it was because her labs showed that her platelets were a little low. They ha

 Today was Saturday Aug 7th on her off treatment "good week", so she has been feeling pretty good and pretty back to normal this whole past week. Yesterday I got a text message from Robert (a friend I used to work with). He goes to just about all of the Pilot Mountain car shows, and he asked if we wanted to come up there. Christian & I have went to a few before and met him up there, and they are always fun.  We left the house around 11 this morning, and ended up staying until around 5pm.  We did a couple rounds up and down main street, and all the back parking lots, that kept filling up more every time around. There was a big rainbow painted on the side of one building that she thought was cool and would make a good photo op, so I got her pretty self a picture. We got some fried bologna sandwiches and lemonade from a place that was making them.  She also got a mango smoothie, and I had a milkshake.  After walking around looking at tons of cool old cars, I told her we need

Just a quick update on treatment 7 and staying active on my non-treatment weeks. I hope everyone has a good week.