new to this all

I am new here. My husband was officially diagnosed with CC the day before our son was born, June 8th, 2008. On the down side, an internal medical doctor told us he had 3-6 months to live, not an oncologist. When we finally got out of the hospital, we were able to get to our oncologist at Big Baylor in Dallas who was mad that my husband was given such grave news without more testing from him. CA19-9 was at 48203 in early July, today his number is 10161. Our oncologist is very pleased and sees at the very least another year or two. Chemo is taxotere & cisplatin (I think) every week. My husband also has ascites, which is drained every 5 days. Ascites only started after a liver biopsy in early May, doctor says this is just a coincidence, but I don’t think so. My husband is very weak and has not been able to return to work since late May.

Does the acsites ever go away?

My husband Joe was diagnosed two years ago and he just started Gemzar and Xeloda(which is an oral chemo) together in April. he seems to have no side effects from xeloda no but they had to decrease his dose after 7 cycles. He can only get the Gemzar every two weeks because it knocks the heck out of his blood counts , white, Hgb and platelets. His tumors which are in liver, lungs and spleen have not shrunk but they haven’t grown since March so we are happy with that. Hope this info helps you. God Bless. Mary Anne

Lissa…..so glad for you joining us and congratulations on the shrinkage. Carol made several great points and one in particular I would like to follow up with that being the seeking of a 2nd, or possibly, 3rd opinion in regards to your treatment.
Wishing for tons more shrinkage coming your way.
Marion

Hi, my husband was diagnosed 5/07 and was on Gemzar all last summer. In his case, it did make him feel better at first, but then after many weeks, he began to feel worse. He is one that didn’t have any shrinkage of the tumors from Gemzar. Some people have very good results with it. I also noticed mention of so many other drugs and procedures, I began researching. Charlie was also given the 3 to 6 months speech and he’s still here 14 months later. I personally feel that only God knows the time and we should not listen to the doctors on that one. We went for 2nd and 3rd opinions and chose what we thought was the best of those and never looked back. Since then, he’s had chemo, chemo and more chemo, radiation, chemoembolization, radio frequency ablation and over half his liver removed in 11/07. Unfortunately, tumors have recurred in his liver. This is just our personal situation, but we’ve never regretted any of it and we keep battling this awful cancer and moving on. A good positive attitude and a sense of humor also help tremendously. Charlie’s opinion is that he would not be alive today if he would have stayed on just the Gemzar indefinitely. Now, we’re starting to discuss the issue of how much more drugs and treatments can he have and not compromise his quality of life? I don’t mean to scare you in any way, just sharing what we’ve experienced. Everyone reacts so differently to all the treatments. I wish you the best!

Carol