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Made it out of the hospital last night and oh does it feel good to shower and sleep in your own bed! Of course as the prerequisite to being discharged I had to earn the shirt shown below. 

Have a great holiday weekend! I think I am going to keep it low key. 

Obstructed Bowel :-(

A very common issue of major abdominal surgery is getting a bowel obstruction. Turns out after over a year it can still happen. Last Thursday the scar tissue from my surgery decided to put a stranglehold on my small bowel. This results in horrible cramps and abdominal pain. The wonderful girlfriend took me to Providence Hospital in Portland where I got admitted Thursday night (the poor girl gets to take me to the hospital too often and only at night, no sleep for us). A CT scan showed that it was just scar tissue and unlikely due to any new cancer growth or a side effect of treatment. Good news in the scheme of things. If we were lucky this would unravel itself in a few days. Turns out I am not that lucky and so went under the knife on Sunday. 

Surgery was quick at around an hour with no complications. My surgeon was conservative and straightforward with me which I appreciated. He also had a very dry sense of humor that took some time to get used to. I will likely be in the hospital for another 5-7 days until the bowels wake back up. Chemo this week will be postponed. Not sure how it will affect the rest of my schedule. Hopefully we just skip this week and start over with the next round. 

On other good news the CT scan did not show an enlarged lymph node (granted this was without contrast). But maybe that sucker is shrunk even more!

Little Sister Successfully Married!

I officiated my little sisters wedding and things couldn't have gone better. We had about 180 guests at my parents house in the Yakima Valley on a hot summer day. Lots of prep work and improvement projects were done for the event and it really transformed the place (although I don't think my parents are up for making this a common venue to rent). My brother and I brewed 20 gallons of beer for the event and it was thoroughly enjoyed. The chest freezer we converted to a "keezer" worked great. Really the highlights for me was hearing my Grandpa speak from the heart to the new couple and me being able to announce the new husband and wife. It was a day full of happy emotions. 

More Scan Details

For those of you interested, here are my two most recent CT scans. The measurements shown on the images aren't the official ones but I'm sure you can see a significant difference between the two.  The images are a cross section of my lower abdominal region looking up towards my head.

Here is the scan from April 29th, 2014 where the tumor was measured to be 61.60x55.20mm or 2.4x2.2in which is nearly the size of a tennis ball.

Here is that same region from July 14, 2014.  The tumor is now measured to be 35.80x21.20mm or 1.4x0.83in which is more like the size of a robin egg.

This was after the tumor continued to grow while on Docetaxel and no treatment for three weeks while waiting to start the new clinical trial drug.  So in all likelihood the mass was even larger at one point.  As excited as I am with these results I have to remember this is still a marathon and we can't see the finish line yet.  The doctors were surprised with these results but are cautiously optimistic on how long the drug will be effective.  Honestly I was hoping for the tumor to stay the same size until the immunotherapy trial opened up.  Looks like I will stick with this drug and hope for it to continue to work well.  I have had a little more fatigue lately but really nothing compared to my MVAC days.  Cycle 3 Dose 8 coming up on Wednesday then a nice relaxing float down the Yakima River on Saturday.  I love summer in the PNW.

Scan Results

So we got some great news yesterday.  Scan results showed shrinkage of 60%!!!!  This was unexpected for myself, the doctors, and the study.  Needless to say we were thrilled with the news. My lymph node is now smaller than it was in January when it recurred.  Hooray for clinical trials!  It has been a long six months with no good news so this was much needed.  Thanks again to all of you for your support.

As promised, here is the timelapse of our sandsculpting.  Remember, everything is awesome!

Enjoy Life

This weekend I will get a chance to meet up with some good friends and play in the sand at Cannon Beach.  We will be there with a lot of other people competing in the 50th annual Sandcastle Contest.  Although there will be judges we will just be aiming to have a good time and hopefully please the crowd.  My friend Mike has gotten us together for this event as he has on many previous occasions.  This year will be his third competition since his lung cancer diagnosis, the guy doesn't let much slow him down.  The past couple weeks however his health has taken a bit of a turn as his current drug regiment is no longer working for him (sadly I can relate).  He will be starting up a new regiment and I really hope it works for him.  What I do know is that he will be enjoying his toes in the sand directing us to create his latest sandy masterpiece.  We will slave for 6 hours moving tons of sand and whittling it down into sculpture.  The final work will be gazed upon for a couple hours at best as the tide comes in to wash it all away.  Nothing but change is forever.

Summertime?!

Well it is June now and usually that means we have another month before summertime rolls in.  I feel like this Spring has been pretty warm and dry, no complaints here.  I just finished up the first cycle of the new treatment and thus far have had little to no side effects.  In fact it has made me realize how bad some of the other drugs were making me feel.  This is my "off" week and I head back up to Seattle next week to start round 2.  We will do some more scans at the end of that cycle and have a good idea if this is working or not.
We did get some good news last week though, my LD (Lactate dehydrogenase) levels have plummeted since starting this new treatment.  LD can be used as a measure of cell turnover and a high level can mean that you have rapidly dividing (and dying) cancerous cells in your body.  In Fall of 2012 my LD levels were nearly 3 times the normal level.  They returned to normal after my surgery up until last August.  When the cancer returned the LD levels were on the rise and were not slowed by the Docetaxal.  However with just two doses of the trial drug my LD has dropped significantly.  Really hoping this means that the cancer is being affected.  We will know for sure in about 4 weeks.  Until then I plan to be enjoying the lovely weather.