Christian's Cancer Journey

 Yesterday we went to the Cancer Center around 9:00am to get her CT Scan (Chest, Abdomen, Pelvis). She got done with the scan around 10am and we went to meet with Olivia (Dr. Paluri's APP) to discuss the results shortly thereafter. We had to wait till around 10:45am for the scan reading to be completed. Olivia came in and read us the scan results, and showed us images of all 3 regions. The Liver is healing up great, and there are no signs of any tumors in the liver. So that is great and the surgery / liver re-growth has been a great success so far! The primary tumor in the colon (where all of this started, and it is what sent her into the hospital to begin with) has shrunk so much from the chemo, it still cannot really be seen on imagery. Every other region was clear except a few small spots in the chest. It showed that there were 3 very small spots in her lungs that were new. Now stay calm, and read the rest of this before getting all worked up. The three new spots are extremely s

Hi Everyone, I met with Dr. Ashburn (colon surgeon) on Wednesday. My sigmoid colectomy is set for Monday, January 10. I know it will be in the morning, but I will not get the official time until Friday, January 7. The surgery should take between 3-4 hours. She anticipates that I will be in the Cancer Center recovering for approximately 3 days. The plan is to remove about a foot of my sigmoid colon. She said that is a pretty standard amount. She wants to make sure she gets the area where the tumor and perforation were and also make sure to leave clear margins. She plans to do everything laparoscopically, but if an incision needs to be made it will be a small vertical one below my belly button.  She also hopes to reverse my ileostomy at the same time, but it depends on how everything looks and if she feels like my colon needs to heal before I start using it again. So I will either wake up and still have it or it will be gone. I am fine either way. Of course I would love to go ahead and g

 Well, she finally made it to her LAST chemo treatment, number 12!! We left the house a little early and stopped by Krispy Kreme to get a few dozen minis & some coffee for the pod nurses.  We got to the cancer center around 9am. She got checked in and had her port accessed. We met with Dr. Paluri, and discussed the next few steps after this final round (more details on that below). We discussed how well this whole process has went in her case from a results standpoint. She told him that she wanted to wait to ring the bell until after her colon surgery and scans, and that she would ring it after he told her she was NED (no evidence of disease). He liked that idea, and is hopeful that she will be one of his "success stories". We know there are lots of hands in this, and God ultimatley knows what the outcome of everyone's situation is, but we are very thankful that Dr. Paluri has done such a great job thru all of this so far, and that Christian's body has responded t