Oncologist on 10.31.18

Went to the oncologist today. He confirmed that I have T3 N2. This means that the cancer is stage 3 and that it is in contact with 2-6 lymph nodes. The human body has 500-700 lymph nodes.  I was also told that the cancer while penetrating the outer stomach wall, it won't weaken the structural integrity of the stomach to the point of a perforation. He stated that it is curable. I did not ask for average survival rates as I don't really know what that means and focusing on the things I can change is the most important task, not worrying about stuff that I cant. right now my weight was 194.5 which seems to be up from a low of about 192. My pulse was 53 which is lower than the last week where it was in the high 70's some of this could be an error and some could be that I'm recovering from lack of eating.

So, the current plan is to have a port placed in my chest within a week. This is an outpatient procedure. It is a device that is under the skin that allows doctors easy access to inject medicine into my body. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_(medical)

Then in about two weeks we would start chemotherapy. This would last about 3 months.  It seems that with current medicine the nausea is well controlled though medication. Then we would have surgery then another three months of chemotherapy.  Obviously I would like this to go faster. I was told that since my cancer is not fast spreading, the two week delay should not make a difference.

We have been made aware of a medical study that adds a double blind assigned immunotherapy after the surgery. immunotherapy is a method of turning  off the "breaks" of an immune system to attack cancer cells. I have to read the document but it is an additional option. Since one has to still be given the standard of care, this would be an optional additional immunotherapy option. This is not usually given in stomach cancer so the purpose of the study is to see if it is effective for this type of cancer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunotherapy

My current direction from the doctor is to gain weight. I will be drinking the equivalent of three boost calorie shakes in addition to my normal diet. I did eat and tolerate a slice of COSTCO pizza today. I still need to chew more as one of the pieces was quite painful to swallow. I added a frozen yogurt. This made for a total of 800+410 calories (1210). It was the most food I have eaten in one sitting in a long time. I don't have heart-burn and it looks like the major limit to eating is not ulcerations but the blockage of my esophagus.

I'm also going to be interviewing  thoracic surgeons to determine who would do the eventual surgery.  I asked about lifestyle changes if I need to have my sphincter removed. He stated that the surgeon would provide that information and that there would be reconstructive surgery. It could take some time to get back to normal function.