Dad can have PIPAC!!

Right, here is the thing:

I don’t know where to start!

So many things have happened in a few days, it’s just completely crazy. But in a good way.

Summing up the situation quickly:

The day we learnt that Dad ( stage 4 cc) had peritoneal metastases was to say the least not a good day.

By nature, I am a curious person and I love learning. But when I found myself in bed that night, the last words I wanted to google were ” metastases on the peritoneum”.

I almost did not want to do that, because really, what good can come of that?

But for some reason, I decided against not knowing more and typed away.

I typed in English and read. Well, this was not good news.
Peritoneal mets: they are extremely hard to treat, bleak prognosis, etc

Then I thought ” hey, let’s see what pops up if I type those words in French?”

And that is when the magic happened!

The first article I read, whoch had only been written 10 days ago, was about a revolutionary way to treat peritoneal mets.
It is non invasive, uses 10% of the chemotherapy products normally used by I.V. It is called PIPAC and seemed to show rather amazing results. But the article only mentioned its use on women whose ovarian cancer had spread to the peritoneum. But it said that they were looking at using it in other instances…

I was really REALLY excited. Could not go back to sleep. OK, dad has not got ovarian cancer ( that would be rather surprising) but his cancer also comes from somewhere in the abdomen, so maybe he could get it??

Anyway, Next morning: I show the article to my parents. We then show it to our G.P ( I was afraid he was going to say that this is maybe not a good idea). Our GP says: we have to go for this!
Right, I ring the German clinic in Bochum and explain the situation. They say they need to see dad’s medical report and a recent scan. We send everything over to Germany as soon as dad comes out of the hospital ( as in the meantime he had been admitted to the emergency with ascending cholangitis. His life was saved at the UZ Leuven. We can never praise them enough.)

And so today… Today we hear about the German team. They have reviewed my dad’s case and they will take him on!! And we are just so elated!!!

They have already treated 11 cases of cholangiocarcinoma. My dad is number 12, I have decided this is the magic number.
And also there is something rather coincidental about the name of the German clinical group. It is called elisabethgruppe.
My dad’s mum was called Elisabeth. What a beautiful coincidence!

And so dad will have the PIPAC very soon. The pulverization happens every 6 weeks and he will have 3 of them. After that, they will review the situation.

I will keep you posted. I hope this info will come handy to some people.