The news is very bad. He has a large (8 cm) cancer in his liver, plus a couple of smaller spots in other areas of the liver, plus some enlargement of lymph nodes in the area.
It's not liver cancer, though -- it's a metastasis of the colon cancer he had three years ago. As I understand it, that's even worse than if it were a new outbreak.
The oncologist was very gentle about it, but he held out no hope of a cure... only the hope that chemotherapy might slow down or halt the growth of the cancer. Radiation is not a possibility, because the liver is too vulnerable -- "it gets very sick," the doctor said. And because the cancer is in multiple sites, surgery isn't possible, either. I even thought about a liver transplant, but I didn't bring it up because I'm sure Papa would never survive such a huge surgery and all the immunosuppressive therapy that goes along with it... even if someone his age could qualify for a donated organ.
So chemo is the only option. But with Papa's age and fragility, there's only so much chemotherapy he'll be able to tolerate. He had a very "light" chemo for a few months after his colon cancer surgery, and he handled it surprisingly well -- so they're going to give him that same combination again (5FU/Leucovorin, weekly; 6 weeks on and 2 weeks off), and add to it Avastin (every other week, no break), which is an anti-angiogenesis drug. That means it works to keep new blood vessels from being formed to supply the cancer, which we hope will slow or stop its growth.
The doctor never said the word "death" -- he just said, "We're going to do everything we can to fight this without destroying your quality of life -- but someday, this is going to get really serious on you. It might be a couple of months, or it might be a couple of years. But I know you and your family want to fight, so we're gonna fight it the very best we can."
And so we will. The first chemo is set for tomorrow. I hope it works a miracle.
It's not liver cancer, though -- it's a metastasis of the colon cancer he had three years ago. As I understand it, that's even worse than if it were a new outbreak.
The oncologist was very gentle about it, but he held out no hope of a cure... only the hope that chemotherapy might slow down or halt the growth of the cancer. Radiation is not a possibility, because the liver is too vulnerable -- "it gets very sick," the doctor said. And because the cancer is in multiple sites, surgery isn't possible, either. I even thought about a liver transplant, but I didn't bring it up because I'm sure Papa would never survive such a huge surgery and all the immunosuppressive therapy that goes along with it... even if someone his age could qualify for a donated organ.
So chemo is the only option. But with Papa's age and fragility, there's only so much chemotherapy he'll be able to tolerate. He had a very "light" chemo for a few months after his colon cancer surgery, and he handled it surprisingly well -- so they're going to give him that same combination again (5FU/Leucovorin, weekly; 6 weeks on and 2 weeks off), and add to it Avastin (every other week, no break), which is an anti-angiogenesis drug. That means it works to keep new blood vessels from being formed to supply the cancer, which we hope will slow or stop its growth.
The doctor never said the word "death" -- he just said, "We're going to do everything we can to fight this without destroying your quality of life -- but someday, this is going to get really serious on you. It might be a couple of months, or it might be a couple of years. But I know you and your family want to fight, so we're gonna fight it the very best we can."
And so we will. The first chemo is set for tomorrow. I hope it works a miracle.
