Update on RFA Procedures

Hi all:

It’s been a busy time, so I wanted to bring my cc friends up to date. I’ve had two of three planned RFA procedures to ablate four visible tumors. Three procedures were required because of the size and positioning of the lesions. The largest had grown quickly and was oddly shaped, so ablation required six positionings of the probe and nearly four hours on the table. Dr. Katz feels confident he got good margins, however. The second was in the caudate lobe near the vena cava, and also required extended time because of the difficult position. The third will be on two small tumors that are easily accessible. Imaging will confirm the success of these and if any clean up is needed. Even though there won’t be visible tumors to measure results, Dr. Lenz is willing to “see” this as active disease and do follow up chemo. It will be Folfox, rather than Gemzar, since my bilirubin numbers tend to stay marginally elevated.

There’s been one frustrating complication. For the last procedure I was in a prone position for four hours, which resulted in a brachial plexus injury. I woke up and couldn’t move my arms…which sucked. They scrambled fast to get me hooked up with neurology and physical therapy. It’s been two weeks and the left is now mainly functioning but weak, while the right remains largely unusable. With therapy, I should get good functionality in a couple of months. It makes my job challenging, like typing with one hand and an inability to write, but I’m adjusting. In the overall scheme of things, it’s a minor setback, and we see all of this as positive. Fighting cc certainly puts things into a new perspective!

Thanks for letting me share, and for your continued good wishes.

Mark