33 yr old with Stage IV intrahepatic CC – became surigical candidate

I was diagnosed April of 2013, shortly after my 32nd birthday. I was engaged to be married (I’m now married) and my wife was 4 months pregnant with twins at the time (I now have a 14 month old son and daughter). I’ve been battling for 19 months now.

I had an egg sized tumor in the left lobe of my liver and several nodes on my peritoneum. So I wasn’t off to a great start but a typical one for many people with CC. My only real option was Chemo so we started with Gem & Cisplatin. I was lucky. I tolerated the chemo really well and I immediately had really positive results. My cancer related symptoms were gone within 6 weeks and my CTs showed really positive results with all of the tumors shrinking steadily over time. I don’t have CA19-9 numbers or PET results like most of the people on here, perhaps because I’m from Canada.

I did chemo for a little over a year, just under 30 treatments. At that point we could no longer see the peritoneum nodes on CT and the liver tumor was very small, mostly scar tissue. From what my team here tells me it’s pretty rare to make this sort of progress. At this point I begin consulting with a surgical oncologist about a liver resection for what’s left of this tumor in the left lobe of my liver. At first he is impressed by the progress but also clearly not ready to do surgery (I’m stage IV after all). He said that if I want to potentially become a surgical candidate I have to go off of Chemo for a period of time to see how stable I am. He had one patient who had done this and it went well. She had surgery and was doing fine 18 months later. Another went off chemo and the cancer came back right away. So she never got surgery.

So after some deliberation that’s what I did. I took a break from Chemo. 3 wks go by, my CT is stable. 8 wks go by. My CT is stable. After 14 weeks without treatment they call me up and tell me my case was reviewed and that they were now willing to do a liver section (remember I was stage IV). So I go in for the liver resection Nov 2014. In the OR prior to starting the resection they expose an area known to previously have had a cancerous node and they can still see a small amount of active cancer (pathology confirms); about 5mm in diameter (something like 3/16ths of an inch for the U.S. crowd). They remove this node but they don’t proceed any further with the procedure because the status of the other nodes is now questionable. Surgery was only approved on the premise that the mets had been completely destroyed by the chemo (this would be very rare but they were willing to take a chance). My surgeon said that I would have to remain stable for a long period of time before they would consider surgery again. Maybe another yr plus time off chemo again. This was my first real set back.

That brings us pretty close to current day. 4 wks after the procedure and I’m healed up (about a 4 inch incision just below my rib cage, right down the middle.). I’m waiting on another CT and expecting to start Chemo again (Gem & Cisplatin) the first week of January. I still feel great. No cancer related symptoms at all. I’m obviously disappointed that the surgery didn’t work out but I also feel extremely fortunate to have made it this far given the context. I know many have not been as fortunate.

The main reason I wrote this post is because I wanted people with Stage IV CC to know that occasionally, if you’re lucky, you can become a surgical candidate. If you’re a little luckier then me you might even get the resection I’m hoping I’ll get a second shot but who knows. I’ll keep you posted.

All the best,