2 Year Update - I'm 45!

I woke up this morning a little teary eyed. Not for the usual crappy health reasons, but because today I share my birthday with my Dad and it’s the first one since he passed away. I've was telling Maya/Omi last night that we have years, probably decades worth of photos of us blowing out the candles on our cheesecake together. The cheesecake tradition was started by my mom, celebrating his bday with his best friends, Dick and Suzanne, on the day I was born. This. This is everything, man. Family. Friends who are family. Unconditional love. Everyone showing up for me when I needed them most. After the tears I was reflecting on just how fortunate I feel to have had such a 'damn near' perfect life. 'Damn near' was one of those phrases dad said all the time. Dad coming through loud and clear today. And you. You all are a part of that - thanks for being there and being awesome.

So, it's been in a waiting game for quite a while... trying to figure out IF and WHEN I can have the second stage resectoin surgery for my liver. We've been scanning, waiting too month, and scanning again. For most of this year my liver tumors were shrinking and CEA (measure of cancer in blood) was going down - both positive signs that chemotherapy is effectively reducing the disease burden. Surgery to resect (remove) any remaining tumors is the most effective wait to prevent the tumor for re-occuring. I'm aiming for surgery, even knowing that surgery still has a very high risk of tumor re-occurence. It's the best option I have right now, knowing that a liver transplant is unlikely. I'm still planning to follow up with Northwestern, where they left the door open. Right now, I have a couple of tumors that have appeared to grow over the last few scans. So that likely means they are resistant to the chemotherapy. There really aren't other effective chemo options, so I'm really hoping to get these surgically removed. I will have scans again next week and then a meeting with the liver surgeon to get this ball rolling, if at all possible. So for now, we wait. Breath. Focus on the present. Focus on what I can control and be at peace with what I cant. Luckily, there are a lot of good things to focus on. I'm getting the kids ready to go back to school next week (yay!) and soaking up the end of summer in the garden...And look at this 45th birthday cheesecake raspberry compote perfection!!