Steve's Care Page

How are things progressing: This last round of chemo really added to my fatigue. This is not something where I'm sleepy, just lack of energy.  I'm over week out from my chemo and I should have more energy than I do. It is hard to work more than 2-3 hours outside the house as I come home pretty tired. It does seem that after 4:00 I get more of an energy boost. I'm starting to get neuropathy in my left hand with it being numb and tingly.  I will be talking to the Dr. about this as I don't want this to be permanent. From a depression and anxiety dimension,  my depression seems to be getting slowly better.  I'm doing everything I should be to manage my serotonin levels.  I'm also having some days with little anxiety. Some dates: I talked with the surgeon and this lines up some tentative dates for the surgery. Seeing the seriousness of the surgery, It is a bit scary. It seems that it is far away but looking at the dates, and all of the things that ne...

I have completed 5 rounds of the 8 of chemo and I will complete my 6th round tommrow. It looks like I'm 45 days out of completing all of the chemo and my last infusion is about 30 days away. While this seems like a short time, time for me has slowed down.  It is a blessing that I can work half time as this gives me the ability to move though time faster by having something to focus on. It is hard because I'm balancing my inability to work vs. ,when I feel stronger, boredom.  This is difficult as it seems that my ability is more varied during the two week cycle.  As an example, I had a 3 hour meeting last week and did not think to bring snacks. I was wiped at the end of the meeting and did not feel better until after I ate.  In talking with my doctor, they are going to reduce the chemo drugs I'm on by 20% for the remaining three rounds. This is due to some of the cumulative side effects.  This won't affect my outcome. I'm also going to talk to some specialists...

Yesterday I received the radiology read on the PETscan. The radiologist stated that there were no indications of cancer from the scan and that the lit up section was indicative of a normal uptake of the dye. Now if there are small amounts of cancer, there can be false positives because of the uptake. Basically there is a chance that my cancer is functionally dead except for micro spots.  The radiologist correctly reports my acid re-flux. It also mentions the  thyroid  nodule and states that my spleen is a bit bigger. This may be because my spleen is also trying to make up for low blood counts. Here is a link to see the results of the PETscan: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A7BEBOJ4TQj9XYZ6J8uurzUQzSSbNuew/view?usp=sharing In talking to the doctor the highest chance of a re-lapse and death is the spreading of these micro spots around my body. Therefore, it is the best course of action to continue on the additional four sessions of chemotherapy because I'm healthy and...

It has been a long time since an update. I now have new information to share. Yesterday we had two important events. The first was a PET scan to see how effective the chemotherapy is progressing and the second was an appointment with my surgeon to discuss biopsy results. First, I don't have the formal results from the radiologist. I can compare the PET scan from November to the one yesterday. It looks like my tumor is much much smaller. You can compare it in the picture below:  These pictures are a cross section of my chest while I'm laying on my back.  The picture on the right is from November and the one on the left is from yesterday. A PET scan shows cancer in a glowing section. Because this is an esophagus there is a small dark hole in the center. You can see how much smaller it is. The not completely bright sections don't indicate cancer, just that other organs pick up the dye during the procedure. I circled the tumor in red. Second, we had an appointment w...

Today I had an endoscopy. The surgeon wanted to look around to see what percentage of my stomach needed to be removed. The preliminary results is that it looks like my cancer is limited to the top of my stomach. We won't know the true extent until the biopsy because looks can be deceiving. If this is true the surgery would possibly be done via a laparoscopic procedure (minimally invasive). This would reduce the chance of infection and make recovery easier. I also had my appointment for tomorrow's chemo. The good news is my Neutrophils number went up from 1.35 to a 4.86. While not as high as pre-chemo (7.6) it is in the range above 2. It means that we can continue on the path and I'm not as compromised as I was at the end of the last round. As for red blood cell counts, they are down from last time. The main number, my hemoglobin is down from 8.6 to 7.4. Before the chemo my number as still below baseline at 13.4 where anything less than 13.5 would be considered low and a...

We went to see a surgeon today. Lots of information First, I will need to get a EKG and blood-work on Monday. This is so that they can do an additional endoscopy Thursday so that they can look around and do more biopsies. The purpose is to see what percentage of my stomach has cancer. They want to do this sooner rather than later to know where the cancer was before the full rounds of chemotherapy. We also talked about what types of surgery would be needed. There are two extremes. Best case: If the cancer is a small percentage of my stomach, they could do a minimal invasive surgery (laparoscopic) to remove the sections that had cancer. Worst case: If it is most of the stomach, they might need to do open surgery, they then need to do some re-construction so that there is a Y joint. The left portion takes in bile and the right portion would take in food. This would require an additional surgeon. We would do all of these 8-10 weeks after the completion of chemo and radiation ...

For me, chemo is basically agreeing to take toxic medicines that nearly kill you every two weeks.  It is scary to volunteer to know that for 2-4 days after taking the medicine your body is basically recovering. Last Saturday, I sat on the couch all day and did not even feel like paying attention to TV.  Slowly day by day you improve. Your not 100% by the next round but you can start doing things. Doing these things for yourself is an important process of control and long term sanity.  Doing things like the dishes and getting the kids ready for school are important tasks. At least for me, another important task is having work to concentrate on.  It feels good to be productive and help others, to use one's built training and expertise. It not just makes the time pass faster, it brings a bit of normalcy into ones life. Also, it is time that you are not thinking about cancer, time that you can get lost in work. This sets up an issue. You go from not wanting to be ...