More Great Results

Pete and I met with my chemo oncologist, Dr Gullion, yesterday; he had received the final pathology reports from my surgery and reviewed the results with us. There were basically five things that we were waiting to learn from this report:

1) Final written confirmation that the liver biopsy was negative;
2) The status on whether they were able to detect any actual cancer cells within the tumor and surrounding tissue (remember, both of my prior biopsies showed that the tumor contained "atypical cells", but this is different than confirming that the cells were actually cancerous);
3) Confirmation that the "margins" (e.g., the ring of normal cells around the tumor) were large and clear of any sign of cancer;
4) Confirmation of the number of lymph nodes removed during the surgery; and
5) Confirmation as to whether these lymph nodes contained any cancerous cells or showed any signs of ever having contained cancerous cells (apparently, sometimes they can detect dead cancer cells within the lymph nodes which indicates that there was cancer there at one point but that the chemo and radiation killed it all)

The results on all five of these factors was fabulous!! The report confirmed that:
1) The spot on my liver is completely benign;
2) There was a "single focus of atypical glands consistent with residual well-differentiated adenocarcinoma, blah, blah, blah.".....I think that this basically means that they confirmed there were cancer cells present, but that the cancer was practically gone due to chemo and radiation
3) The margins were clear and wide with "> 1 cm away from the tumor". Dr Gullion seemed to be very pleased with the "> 1cm" part...personally, I would have preferred to have margins that were closer to "> 1 foot"...
4) Twelve regional lymph nodes were removed. Dr Gullion commented that this is an extraordinary number of lymph nodes for the surgeon to have obtained from this particular part of my pelvis (usually he only sees 3-4 removed), which I think speaks to the skill level of my surgeon.
5) None of the lymph nodes removed contained metastatic cancer or showed any sign of ever having contained cancer (e.g., no dead cancer cells). Dr Gullion explained that there is a huge correlation between the number of "clean" lymph nodes removed and the prognosis for a complete cure -- apparently, the more lymph nodes that they can detect which are clear of cancer means that there is less and less chance that there is cancer floating anywhere else in the body.

So net-net, the results were FABULOUS!! Both Dr Gullion and Dr Poen agreed that, at this point, I am technically either very early stage 3 or possibly even stage 2. And in either case, my chances of a complete cure at this point are very high! WOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

But in the spirit of "no regrets", we all agreed that Dr Gullion will throw the kitchen sink at me one more time in the form of four more months of chemo. We are giving my body a couple more weeks to continue healing from surgery and then I'll tentatively start my first round of chemo on Monday, July 9th. And from what I can gather, I'll go in for a treatment every other Monday and will likely feel like crap for a few days afterwards, but then will hopefully bounce back to feeling better for a few days before I need to go in for my next treatment.

So that is the scoop. We now know exactly what we have been up against this whole time. The funny thing is, this outcome is EXACTLY what I predicted 4 1/2 months ago. In the days following my colonoscopy, when Pete and I were scrambling around having the various tests done to figure out whether or not the tumor was cancerous and, if so, what stage the cancer was, I made a prediction to Pete. We were sitting outside of a coffee shop between doctor's appointments and I said to him: "I think that what they found IS cancer, and I don't think that it's just stage 1. But I also don't think that it has spread anywhere else in my body." Isn't it crazy that, in the end, I was right? Your mind really does know what's going on in your body. Your job is to stop and listen when it's trying to tell you something.