June 2025 Update

It's been a minute since I gave an update. I've been waiting for a significant change - to feel like I can share something meaningful. But the reality is, a lot of my time is spent waiting. I've learned in the last eight months that none of my doctors know enough to give me all of my options. I have to learn as much as I can ON MY OWN, about what to do next. It's really unfortunate, and came as a big surprise to me. I thought my oncologist, you know, my cancer doctor, would know what to do next. Turns out, he has very limited 'tools' to offer me. Limited, as in, only chemo - which is not effective for long. He told me 'no' to things that really were an option, but he didn't know about them. Like liver transplant for cancer patients. It's just striking to me, how I am basically on my own, with a terminal illness.

So, I'm going to California again in late June, for my third histotripsy procedure, to get rid of some more tumors. There's very little statistical likelihood that I can get rid of all of them. So eventually, my body will become resistant to the chemotherapy, and my liver tumors will grow and spread to other parts of my body. But for now, I may have a couple of other options. I reached out to one of the most respected liver cancer surgeons in the US, and he confirmed that he can't remove them. He suggested I explore the HAI pump (liver directed chemo) or a transplant. I'm already exploring both, and I took that as a good sign that I'm on the right path. The trick is, you have to have no other metastisis outside of your liver. My goal now is to get a liver transplant, when I become eligibile. I had a laproscopic surgery last week and got the good news that the surgeon didn't see any other metastasis. My last scans showed this as well.

Now they want me to get scanned again, to confirm. Hopefully after that, I can get the HAI pump and resection of my colon to remove my primary cancer. If I can qualify for the HAI pump, this liver directed chemotherapy may be effective enough to get the cancer circulating in my blood low enough enough, to qualify for a liver transplant. I'm in contact with the most experienced liver cancer transplant Doctor in the US, who happens to be across the country in New York. And by most experienced, I think he's done less than two dozen. The funny thing is, pre-diagnosis I would have been very scared to attempt something like this. However... over the last several months, I've had to face my own mortality and leaving my kids, which is the scariest thing I could think of experiencing. Everything else now pales in comparison.

We got to take a trip to Odell lake last weekend, with the kids, my brother and his fam. and my Mom and Tony. It was pretty good. Being home now is associated with so much bad news - so getting out was a nice change of pace. I told the kids my camp name would be the 'Sloth.' I will be slow and need lots of rest. I could really use their help, so Ryan doesn't have to do everything. They were all happy to help. We gave them each an assignment, Master of Light (help with firemaking, flashlights, etc.), Master of Land (help with setting up/taking down chairs, camp kitchen, etc.) Master of Home (setting up the camper, setting up our kitties well while we're gone for the weekend) and Master of Water (kayaks, lifejackets, etc.). They all got into it, gave them purpose, helped out, and I made it without being too exhausted.